


Copycat

by kssm



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Danganronpa x MHA, F/F, F/M, Fights, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hajime is a nervous wreck, High School, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Like really slow build, M/M, No Beta, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Quirks (My Hero Academia), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Superpowers, Tension, Villains, We Die Like Men, how do i tag lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kssm/pseuds/kssm
Summary: Since he was a kid, Hajime had always wanted to be a Pro-Hero. Heroes were the peacekeepers of this world, constantly risking their lives to protect everyone from villains, people who want to use their quirks for evil. When things got bad, Hajime always held onto the hope that when he finally became a hero one day, he could save kids like him, who were crying themselves to sleep in secret.(Hajime Hinata was born Quirkless, but had big dreams of getting into the world famous hero training school, UA High, and becoming a Pro-Hero. One day, those dreams suddenly seem a lot more achievable.Or,A My Hero Academia x Danganronpa crossover no one asked for.)
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Komaeda Nagito, Hinata Hajime/Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko, Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 25
Kudos: 102





	1. Discovery

All men are not created equal. Hajime had to learn this the hard way.

It all started in a city in China, over 100 years ago, where a newborn baby had suddenly begun to radiate a bright light. Nothing like this had ever been seen before. Since then, people around the world have been reported to suddenly be developing these strange superpowers. No one knew where it came from or how it worked. Soon, the supernatural became the normal, and now, over 80% of the world have some type of superpower, which has since been called a “Quirk”.

80% of people gain a quirk sometime in their life. This means that 20% of people never develop quirks. So what happens to the 20% that are now considered abnormal?

-

“Hajimeee! You’re here!”

Hajime’s brown hair swayed in the wind as he looked up from his phone, spotting a familiar boy waving at him from the courtyard of their middle school. Hajime lifted a hand to greet the wispy-haired boy.

“Hey Nagito.”

“Ah, a man of few words.” Nagito commented, laughing. “Seriously, with how close we are, you’d think that you could open up to me more, right?”

“I do.” Hajime replied, quirking an eyebrow up at the taller boy. “Why’d you call me here?” Hajime had been thinking about going to the cafe nearby the school today when he received a call from Nagito, asking him to meet him at the courtyard.

“Right! Well…” Nagito trailed off, trying to create some suspense. Hajime simply stared at him, unimpressed. “We’re training!”

“Why?”

“Because the entrance exam for UA is only 3 months away! We need to start grinding and get stronger!” Nagito exclaimed, waving his arms around. As Nagito continued to ramble on, Hajime looked to his side, staring blankly ahead.

Since he was a kid, Hajime had always wanted to be a Pro-Hero. Heroes were the peacekeepers of this world, constantly risking their lives to protect everyone from villains, people who want to use their quirks for evil. When things got bad, Hajime always held onto the hope that when he finally became a hero one day, he could save kids like him, who were crying themselves to sleep in secret.

Hajime shook his head, looking back at Nagito looking at him expectantly. “Why do you need me here though?” Hajime asked, hoping it satisfied whatever Nagito was waiting for.

It didn’t. “Whaat?” Nagito looked at him like he had grown a second head. “Hajimeee, you’re so weird! We’re training because we’re going to get into UA together, remember?” Nagito crossed his arms, pouting. “Sometimes I really feel like your memory is getting worse.”

Hajime sighed. “No, you’re training to get into UA. It’d be impossible for me, remember?” Hajime forced out a bitter chuckle, looking down. Nagito stayed quiet for a bit, before beginning to speak.

“Hajime… You know they got rid of that stupid rule, right? You don’t need a quirk to get into UA. Maybe you’ll need one to get into the hero course, but you can still get into another class! There’s general studies, the support course, the business course…”

But settling for one of those wasn’t enough for Hajime. He wanted to be a hero, no matter what it took. It felt like a cruel joke on Hajime, that day when the doctor had told him and his mom that there was probably no chance of Hajime developing a quirk.

_“Sorry son, but you should probably just give up.” The short, older man said, sitting down on his rolling chair. A younger Hajime immediately stopped talking, his excited ramblings about being the best hero the world had ever seen being crushed in that one sentence. He felt his mother wrap an arm around Hajime, but in that moment, he couldn’t register anything except those words. “You’re not getting a quirk.” The doctor continued.”_

_“Are you sure? There’s no chance?” Hajime’s mother asked, her brows furrowing together._

_“You and the boy’s father are fourth generation quirk users, correct?” The doctor asked, to which he felt his mom subtly nod her head. “Can you tell me about your quirks?”_

_“Well, it’s nothing too special.” His mom replied, glancing down at Hajime, who now was looking straight down to the ground. “I can float small objects towards me, while my husband can elongate his fingers.”_

_“I see…” The doctor mumbled, before pulling down a projector screen on the wall. “I want you both to look at this.” The doctor meddled with the projector on his desk, and then an image projected onto the screen. It was an x-ray of Hajime’s foot. “Well, you see, there’s no definitive proof of how to tell if someone can develop a quirk, but there are a few signs that are mostly accurate. This is one of them.” He walked up to the image, placing a finger on his pinky toe. “In this toe, most quirk users have two joints in their toe. It seems to be the best connection we have to getting a quirk. But, if you look closer here, Hajime only has one joint.” The doctor looks back at the pair, a worried mother and a child with a broken spirit. “If you add in the fact that both you and your husband’s quirks aren’t very compatible with each other, there’s probably no change of it happening.”_

_Hajime didn’t mean for the tears to slip down his face. He didn’t know when they started, or how to stop it, but he didn’t care. Those hollowing words echoed constantly in his mind._

_“You’re not getting a quirk.” ___

__“Hajime?”_ _

__Hajime blinked, snapping out of his trance, and focusing back on Nagito. “You okay? You spaced out for a second there.” Nagito chuckled out with a sympathetic look._ _

__“Yeah. It’d just be nice to have the same opportunity as everyone else, y’know?” Hajime mumbled out, his cheeks burning red from the confession. Nagito sighed again, placing a hand on Hajime’s shoulder. Nagito started going off on one of his tangents again about how not having a quirk didn’t mean it wasn’t the end of him, but Hajime stopped paying attention. He felt a strange energy begin to course through his body. It wasn’t unpleasant or painful, just… Weird. Hajime shook it off as probably being in his head, and gently took Nagito’s hand off of his shoulder. “It’s alright Nagito, I’m okay. It’s a bummer, but… I can deal with it.” Hajime forced out a smile to try to emphasize his claim. From the look on Nagito’s face, he knew that he didn’t believe him for a second, but Nagito seemed to let it slide._ _

__“If that’s so, then let’s start training! You may not have a quirk, but that doesn’t mean you should let your physical abilities go to waste!” Nagito called out, running to the other side of the courtyard, taking on his over dramatic and stupid fighting stance. Hajime chuckled, knowing he was trying to activate his quirk, but Hajime wouldn’t let him have the chance. He raised his fists as he waited for Nagito’s signal._ _

__

___Nagito Komaeda. Quirk: Shame. The more embarrassed Nagito is, the stronger he gets. ____ _

____ _ _

____But when Nagito yelled out and began to charge, Hajime couldn’t move forward. His feet were planted on the ground, and that strange energy he had felt beforehand began to slowly course through his body again. What was happening to him?_ _ _ _

____He snapped out of his trance when Nagito’s fist collided with Hajime’s face, and he stumbled backwards, falling to the ground and holding his face. He looked up, to where Nagito stood, huffing and crossing his arms. “Alright, what is up with you? You’re acting weird.” Nagito questioned._ _ _ _

____“Sorry.” Hajime replied, his face reddening slightly, feeling a guilt course through him. He needed to get his act together. It’s a bit crushing that he wouldn’t get into UA, but he shouldn’t ruin the chance for Nagito. Nagito was just as passionate about getting into UA as Hajime was, albeit for another reason (“Imagine having the opportunity to observe future hero quirks and experience the hope that’s brimming in them! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’ Nagito had exclaimed when Hajime asked about his intentions). The world didn’t revolve around Hajime. He needed to stop being so embarrassing and get his act together-_ _ _ _

____“Uh… Hajime?” Nagito suddenly says, stepping away and looking at Hajime strangely._ _ _ _

____But he didn’t need Nagito to point it out, because when Hajime looked down, he noticed it himself. Somehow, his arm seemed more muscular than before. He felt a slight burn in his stomach, and when he lifted his shirt, he saw the very faint outline of abs that he knew was not there before. Slowly, out of confusion, Hajime stood up. He walked towards Nagito, both boys equally confused, and Hajime noticed that he seemed to be walking faster than usual. He reaches Nagito, looking at him exasperated._ _ _ _

____“Nagito, what’s happening?” Hajime finally said, looking down at his hands again. He felt… Power. But how? Hajime was just a normal guy. There was nothing special about him, no quirk, nothing. When he looked back up, Nagito was smirking at him, a gleam in his eyes._ _ _ _

____“Hajime…” Nagito said slowly, making sure to get his point across. “Are you sure there was no chance of a quirk developing?”_ _ _ _

____-_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Hajime was careful to quietly open his front door, and to close it with a barely audible click, as he stepped into the living room that was scattered with textbooks spilling out from a pink backpack. He didn’t know who was home, but he was taking precautions anyways in case._ _ _ _

____He felt a weight drop from his shoulders though, when his sister’s head popped from the kitchen, and in a second, she bolted straight to Hajime, enveloping him a hug. She looked excited and healthy, which meant that for the time being, he had nothing to fear._ _ _ _

____“Hey Himari.” Hajime said, smiling gently down at his sister. She looks back at him, her eyes sparkling._ _ _ _

____“Hi Hajime! How was school today?” Himari asked, a big smile on her face._ _ _ _

____“It was…” Hajime didn’t really know how to explain to his sister that yeah, after all these years, his body might be changing and he might finally have something similar to a quirk. So, he settled for, “Interesting.”_ _ _ _

____Himari simply laughed. “You’re weird. Mom’s in the kitchen, go say hi and do whatever you need to.” Himari stands up, delicately extracting herself from Hajime and bounding over to the living room._ _ _ _

____Hajime walks over to where he sees his mom floating a kitchen knife towards her, preparing to chop up some vegetables. He knocks on the wall twice, not wanting to startle his mother. Unfortunately, she jumps anyways, looking back at him, a gentle smile slowly settling on her face. “Hey, honey. How are you?” His mom asked, wrapping him in a hug._ _ _ _

____Hajime relishes the warmth of his mom, before pulling away. “Uh, it was good.” He felt horrible for lying to his mother, but once again, he didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling. Hajime felt his mother’s eyes boring into his own, and his eyes flicked to the side, trying to look anywhere but at his mother’s piercing green eyes._ _ _ _

____“Hajime, something happened.” His mother stated, gently tugging him and sitting on the dining table, gesturing for Hajime to sit across from her. He does. “What happened?”_ _ _ _

____It didn’t surprise Hajime that his mom could see right through him; She was the closest person to him, after all, so there wasn’t anything he could hide from her. “Um… Do you…” Hajime stumbled out, having trouble putting his thoughts into words. “Do you think it’s possible for a quirk to manifest in later years?”_ _ _ _

____The silence that followed was torturous. He knew that the thought of having a quirk now, after all these years, was impossible on every level, and his mother knew that too. It was stupid of him to get his hopes up. But, to his surprise, when he looked up, his mother was looking down to the table, a hand to her chin. She seemed to be deep in thought._ _ _ _

____“A quirk…” His mom muttered out. “What do you mean? What makes you think that you manifested a quirk now?”_ _ _ _

____Hajime sighs. “You know how Nagito is training to get into UA, right?” He ignored the you both are that his mom whispered out. “Well, while we were training… Something happened. I felt like a weird energy in my body, and it felt like I was getting stronger than I was before. It was weird.”_ _ _ _

____A smile began to spread onto his mom’s face, her eyes gleaming with what he could only call hope. “Hajime… I don’t want to get your hopes up… Much less mine, but… If that’s true, then you might actually have something beginning to show.” His mom makes eye contact with Hajime, and he can’t help smiling himself from how happy she looked. “Baby, it finally happened! I… I’m so happy!” Hajime let out a small chuckle, thinking about how long his mom had been holding on for a quirk to show up in him, hoping that it could finally bring some happiness into Hajime’s life._ _ _ _

____The happy moment between them quickly shattered, however, when a loud bang of the door sounded from the front door. Hearing a raspy grunt, heavy footsteps, and his sister’s greeting confirmed what he had been fearing._ _ _ _

____His mom sighed from his side. “He’s been drinking again.”_ _ _ _

____“Mom, I thought he was on a business trip.” Hajime said, looking to his mom in confusion and concern. “Why is he here? He shouldn’t be back yet.”_ _ _ _

____His mom didn’t respond, simple sighing before slowly lifting herself out of the chair, and dragging her feet to the living room. Hajime quickly followed suit, wringing his hands together nervously._ _ _ _

____This wasn’t going to end well._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____-_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____His father’s booming voice echoed throughout the entire house and he entered the living room._ _ _ _

____“But Daddy, I-” Himari tried explaining, but was immediately shushed by another loud boom from his father._ _ _ _

____“I don’t want to hear any excuses! I see that the kitchen over there is still dirty, and I know that your room is an absolute mess. You call your behaviour right now acceptable?!”_ _ _ _

____“Let me explain!”_ _ _ _

____“I told you I want no excuses!”_ _ _ _

____Hajime watched his mother run over to his dad, and immediately knew what was next. He began to move his feet, reaching out for his mom, but she was just out of reach._ _ _ _

____“Dear, please.” His mom reasoned, placing a hand on her husband’s arm. “We’ve all had a rough day today. I was the one who dirtied the kitchen, it was already cleaned by Himari. And her room is spotless, just how you like it. There’s no need to yell at our child.”_ _ _ _

____That only made his father more furious, turning to his mom with a growl. “Why are you getting in the way, woman?” He spat out, making his mom flinch. “And to think you left the kitchen that dirty! You know I work hard to support us! You could help and make things a little easier on me!”_ _ _ _

____Guilt flashed in his mother’s eyes, her voice reducing to nothing more than a whisper. “Y-You’re right. I’m sorry. I just-”_ _ _ _

____“I said no excuses!”_ _ _ _

____The deafening smack that rings out was all Hajime needed to snap out of his trance. Watching the limp body of his mother fall to the ground, a red mark across her face slowly reddening was all Hajime needed. He immediately ran to his mom on the ground._ _ _ _

____“Where do you think you’re going, boy?” His dad yelled, attempting to stand in his way. Hajime didn’t know what made today so different; Perhaps it was all the confusion of a potential quirk that made his judgement clouded. He responded to his father by pushing him out of his way, ignoring him in favour of dropping to his mom’s side._ _ _ _

____“Mom! Mom, are you okay?!” Hajime yelled out, touching her face gently to inspect the injury._ _ _ _

____And even through the severity of the situation, he couldn’t help but notice something. A sensation similar to something he felt before. Hajime felt that same energy he had felt when he was training with Nagito coursing through his veins again. Hajime growled out of frustration, attempting to get the feeling out of his system. It wasn’t the time to question quirks right now: His mom was hurt and he needed to protect her._ _ _ _

____“Bold today, aren’t we, boy?!”_ _ _ _

____Hajime flinched at those words being forced out through gritted teeth. When he turned his head, his dad was standing above him, a hand raised to the air. “I’ll teach you. Know your place in this house!” He screamed out, his hand flying towards Hajime. Hajime squeezed his eyes shut, holding a hand out in front of him to try to protect himself from the hit._ _ _ _

____But he felt no pain._ _ _ _

____Instead, he felt a loud thud echo, and a surprised gasp from both his dad and his sister. Slowly, Hajime opened his eyes to find a large textbook in his hand that was previously empty._ _ _ _

____“What…” Hajime felt himself whisper out. His whole world is currently being turned upside down. How the hell did that just happen? He knows for sure it wasn’t some kind of quirk of his, because even if he did potentially have a quirk, it was whatever that strength was when he sparred with Nagito._ _ _ _

____Hajime was pulled out from his thoughts at the sound of his dad booming out laughter. “Well, would you look at that? My boy actually has a quirk!” He exclaimed. “Funny, I thought you were gonna be useless all your life!” He laughed again, taking a step towards Hajime. “But unfortunately, this isn’t gonna get you out of what’s coming for you.”_ _ _ _

____-_ _ _ _

____Hajime wouldn’t admit to anyone if later that night, he tried his hardest to bring an object to his hand again, trying to ignore the throbbing from his bruised body._ _ _ _

____-_ _ _ _

____Hajime decided not to go to school the next day. He still had to heal from his injuries that would barely even let him breathe without pain. Still, he managed to find the willpower to get out of bed and meet up with Nagito at their usual spot in the courtyard, determined not to bring his friend down. He probably looked really bad right now, purple bruises littered on his skin and his eye nearly swollen shut, but Hajime was lucky enough, he could convince Nagito that he had gotten into some sort of accident instead._ _ _ _

____Of course, he wasn’t lucky enough, and Nagito was immediately at his side when he saw him._ _ _ _

____“This is worse than last time.” Nagito muttered out wistfully, carefully dabbing the area around Hajime’s eye with a wet cloth. Hajime hissed at the sting. “This needs to stop eventually.”_ _ _ _

____“How do you even know it was from what you think it is?” Hajime tried to retort, but Nagito just shot him an unimpressed look._ _ _ _

____“You can’t fool me. We both know that your dad is more than capable of causing this.” Nagito continued his work, cleaning Hajime’s eye wound to the best of his ability. He had started moving towards the bruises and cuts on Hajime’s neck when he spoke again. “Were the other two injured this badly?”_ _ _ _

____“No, thank god. Himari didn’t get hurt and mom only got a slap across the face this time, which is better than usual. I guess my defiance protected them this time.” Hajime breathlessly laughed out. Nagito simply shook his head._ _ _ _

____“Hajime, your eye looks a lot more serious than usual. I think I’m going to have to take you out to the hospital this time.”_ _ _ _

____“Nagito-”_ _ _ _

____“I know you don’t like the sound of it, but how about this. If you promise you’ll go with me right now, we can talk to the doctor about your quirk fiasco afterwards?”_ _ _ _

____Hajime couldn’t argue with him there. As much as Hajime hated feeling like a burden to others, his curiosity and desire to know more about his possible power outrode any of that. So, begrudgingly, he let Nagito assist him in walking over to the hospital._ _ _ _

____-_ _ _ _

____“There you go, son.” The doctor cheerfully sang out, wrapping gauze around the last wound. “You need to let your body rest, but you should be good to go back to school as soon as tomorrow. Just don’t use your arms for much other than writing.”_ _ _ _

____“Thanks doc.” Hajime said._ _ _ _

____“Now,” The doctor started, placing his hands on his hips. “Your friend outside told me that you have questions concerning your quirk. Can you tell me about them?”_ _ _ _

____He took a seat, placing himself in front of Hajime. “Um, yeah. Well, lack of a quirk.” Hajime looked down, beginning to ramble. “Well, I was born without a quirk, and I really hate that I don’t have one, since my dreams of becoming a hero will just stay dreams. But then, yesterday, when I was training with my friend, his name is Nagito, I felt myself getting stronger and faster for some reason, out of nowhere. And then later on, when I was home, I was prote- Uh, I mean, I was holding my hand out, and suddenly a book came flying into my hand. So, um, I don’t wanna get my hopes up, and maybe my hope that I do have a quirk is clouding my vision, but… Is it possible that I suddenly developed a quirk now?”_ _ _ _

____When he was finished, he looked up to see the doctor with a book in his hands, now flipping through the pages. Eventually, he stopped at the page he was looking for, skimming through before raising an eyebrow, glancing back at Hajime. “You said there were two different accounts of using a quirk?” Hajime nodded. “And at the time, they seemed completely different from each other?” Hajime hadn’t thought about it, but now that he took a step back, becoming stronger and floating objects were completely different from each other. Hajime nodded again, this time a little more hesitantly._ _ _ _

____The doctor then stood up, signalling Hajime to do the same. “I think that I might be able to narrow down exactly what’s been going on with you. But, to make sure, I’d like to test something out. Of course, only with your agreement.” The doctor extended a hand to Hajime. “What do you say, kid?”_ _ _ _

____Hajime looked at the outstretched hand for a second, contemplating. On one hand, he would love to know why he’s been feeling weird, and what quirk he now has. But, the way the doctor phrased it… He might not have a quirk after all, but instead have some sort of problem instead. Once again, though, his curiosity outmatched his concern, and with cautious movements, he took the doctor’s hand into his own._ _ _ _

____And there it was again. He felt a new, yet still strange, energy coursing through his arm, as if starting from his hand where he was touching the doctor, and spreading throughout him. Hajime unintentionally flinched back, releasing his grip on the doctor. The doctor simply watched. “I see… Hajime, I’d like you to take a look at the corner of the room.”_ _ _ _

____Hajime does so. “Okay…” He mumbled out, still a little unsure._ _ _ _

____“Do you see the plant over there?”_ _ _ _

____Hajime focused his eyes on the tall green plant sitting there. “Yes.”_ _ _ _

____“I’d like you to stretch your arms out and point the palms of your hands towards it.”_ _ _ _

____Hesitantly, Hajime does what he’s asked, still unsure of where this was going._ _ _ _

____“Now, I’d like you to focus back on the energy that you felt. You can close your eyes if you had to.”_ _ _ _

____Hajime’s focus was nearly broken by the fact that the doctor somehow knew about the energy he’d been feeling. But, trusting the process, Hajime closed his eyes._ _ _ _

____“I want you to feel that energy coursing into your hands.” The doctor said, stepping back to give Hajime space. “Feel the tension build up in your hands, all the energy being pent up in the palm of your hands.”_ _ _ _

____Hajime takes a deep breath in._ _ _ _

____“Now… Release it.”_ _ _ _

____Hajime breaths out, doing exactly that. He feels the tension slowly dissipate._ _ _ _

____And he hears a strange sound, like water splashing._ _ _ _

____When Hajime opens his eyes, he sees it. A puddle slowly forming around the plant in front of him. He quickly retreats his hands towards him, until he notices that they feel wet. When he inspects them, he sees water dripping from his palms. “What…?” Hajime whispered out._ _ _ _

____The doctor laughed, however, grabbing Hajime’s attention. “I had a feeling. Hajime, I think I’ve got it figured out. Watch this.” Smoothly, while keeping a smile on his face, the doctor extended his hand over to the plant too, and Hajime watched as water jetted out of his hand, splashing onto the plant. So that was the doctor’s quirk? What did that have to do with anything?_ _ _ _

____Then Hajime gasped. He looked back down at his hands, dripping wet the same way the doctor’s was. Could it be…?_ _ _ _

____“Hajime, my quirk is the ability to shoot water out of my hands. Yesterday, you had the ability to float a book to you, correct?”_ _ _ _

____Hajime could only nod._ _ _ _

____“According to your file, your mother has the same ability.”_ _ _ _

____Hajime felt a smile slowly creep onto his face. Could it be…?_ _ _ _

____“Though it’s very rare, it’s not impossible to develop a quirk after your younger years. Hajime, you told me that you wanted to be a hero.” Hajime felt his legs give out on him, having to plop down on his seat again. The doctor kneeled down, on the same level as Hajime. “Well, don’t lose hope. It’s still possible…”_ _ _ _

____And when the doctor spoke again, Hajime felt tears prickling his eyes, unable to believe his ears._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Hajime Hinata, you do have a quirk.”_ _ _ _


	2. Prep

“Copy?!” Nagito exclaimed, bouncing up and down in front of Hajime excitedly the next day. Hajime couldn’t help but let out a small smile at the sight. “Hajime! I knew it! You were just a late bloomer, you had a quirk all along!”

“Well, I didn’t actually have a quirk, remember?” Hajime tried reasoning, but even he feels his heart picking up faster, adrenaline pumping from his excitement. “But yeah… I actually have a quirk.” Hajime lifted a hand, smiling down. With a newfound power, his dreams started to seem more and more like reality.

_Hajime Hinata! Quirk: Copy. He can copy the quirks of anyone he touches, but only for 5 minutes. Plus, he can only use one quirk at a time._

“Guess I just lucked out.”

“But you know what this means, right?” Nagito said, beaming at Hajime. “UA High, here we come!”

Hajime failed to stifle a laugh at Nagito’s enthusiasm. “You’re right. UA, here we come.”

UA High School is the most promising hero school in the world. There, most of the top Pro Heroes trained and were taught, rising above all the others. If you were to go to this school, it was basically a guaranteed route to success. But, as such, the acceptance rate of the school was insanely low: 1% of all those trying out for the school actually get it. And even then, once you get in, you aren’t guaranteed to keep your spot. You have to fight to keep it, and constantly become a better version of yourself. It’s a tiresome and hard process, but the payoff is worth it.

And Hajime was going to get in. No matter what anyone said.

-

Official training between him and Nagito started the next day.

It quickly became apparent what Hajime could and couldn’t do with his new quirk. He could steal the quirk of whoever he wanted for a limited time, but he still had to be mindful of his own body. Just because the original user of the quirk is able to use it easily, doesn’t mean Hajime would be able to. For example, Nagito had advised him to try and steer clear from physical bulk up quirks like his own. They didn’t know how much Hajime’s body would be able to take of it.

That’s why Hajime had to train hard. Harder than he ever had before. Harder than anyone else.

He had to train in order to tone his body to handle powerful quirks. He had to train his legs to move swiftly and gracefully. With a quirk like his, he’d have to touch the user to be able to actually use their quirk. That could prove to be a difficult task, especially if the user is a villain, or someone you need to actually take down. He had to learn how to be flexible and agile, learning to dodge common attacks, where the easiest spots to touch on a human are, and how to swiftly apprehend a foe, even without use of a quirk. He never knew what a certain situation could ask for.

It was tough, and some days he felt like resting and not getting up. But he couldn’t afford to. He couldn’t give up. Because he had started later than others, so he had to work way harder than anyone else.

“Hey, Hajime.” Nagito said out of breath, the day before the entrance exams. It was their final training session. “I’m not sure how you can do this for so long. I mean, just seeing that you’re able to keep up with all my punches and moves constantly… It shows how much improvement you’ve been making.” Nagito looks Hajime in the eyes, his eyes sparkling in a way that made Hajime blush slightly. “You really are brimming with such a beautiful hope.”

“H-Hey, don’t be like that.” Hajime chuckled out, waving his hand dismissively. “I mean, you’ve also improved a lot too. After all, you’ve been learning other ways to embarrass yourself that isn’t just dropping your pants in front of everyone.”

His joke earned a joyful laughter from Nagito. “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

They both laughed. It was a nice moment, a second where they forgot about how high the stakes were. When they stopped laughing, they were left staring at each other, determination and uncertainty glowing in their eyes. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?” Nagito said.

“Yeah… I mean, who wouldn’t be?” Hajime replied. He was only just getting used to using his new quirk. He was already behind several years compared to everyone else, and he still had so much to work to do, and so much to learn. But maybe… “Nagito… Do you think we have what it takes to pass this exam?”

Nagito lifted a finger to his chin, thinking for a moment. “Hmm… It’s hard to say. Only because no one really knows what they’re expecting from us.”

“That’s true.” UA had the tendency to constantly change up their entrance exams every year to keep applicants on their toes. In a way, it was kind of a testament to the real world: You were never going to be prepared for what came your way. That was especially true for the Hero world, where villains knew all your strengths and weaknesses, and you knew nothing about theirs. “But…”

Nagito looks up at Hajime.

“We’ve come such a far way.” Hajime said, his voice filled with newfound determination. “We can’t give in now. We can do this!”

And Nagito smiled at him like he was the only person in the world.

“I agree. Let’s kick ass in the test.”

-

“Hello everyone! How excited are we today?!”

Even though there was no response in the school auditorium, the woman standing in the center of the stage didn’t seem to be fazed at all, her orange hair glowing under all the lights as she continued on.

“Great! It’s so refreshing to see so many faces here today!” The young woman continued on, scanning the room. “The faces of so many potential heroes here is making my heart burst!”

It was the day of the exam, and Hajime was currently sitting in the school auditorium next to Nagito. His heart was about to burst too, but for an entire different reason. He was extremely nervous, having no idea what to expect. His pep talk yesterday seemed to have ignited hope in Nagito’s soul, but it had done nothing to calm Hajime’s heart down.

He felt Nagito nudge him from his side. He turned to see Nagito’s gleaming as he excitedly whispered. “Hajime! I can’t believe it! We’re really in a room with Dupli-Lady!”

“Dupli-Who?”

Nagito gave him an incredulous look. “You don’t know her? That’s Chisa Yukizome, also known as the Multi Hero: Dupli-Lady! Her quirk is Clones! She can make multiple clones of herself that she can make do whatever she wants. She’s more of a rescue than fighting hero, but she can still-”

Hajime tuned out from Nagito’s ramblings, focusing back on the woman standing on the stage. So she was a Pro. That’s to be expected. Most of the school faculty were well known Pro-Heroes after all. He’d have to catch up with them all later. Right now, he had to pay attention to see how he could pass the entrance exam.

“Didn’t take you as a fanboy.” Hajime swiftly replied, hoping to end Nagito’s rambling so they could go back to paying attention. It seemed to work, with Nagito scoffing and turning back to Dupli-Lady, pouting childishly.

“And now, it’s time to explain the entrance exam this year to you all!”

The projector behind the orange haired woman lights up, showing a depiction of a city with drawings of different types of robots.

“Now, on your exam paper, you were each given a letter. Those letters are assigned to which battle station you’ll be battling in! In each city, there are three types of robots to defeat!” Dupli-Lady steps to the side, gesturing to the robots on screen. “Each one is worth a different amount of points. There are one pointers, two pointers, and three pointers to defeat! Your goal is to try and rack up as many points as you can!” She takes her place back to the center of the stage, pointing at her audience. “Remember, you better keep things heroic! Attacking other students is a big UA no-no!”

Hajime looked down at the piece of paper he received at the front gate of the school. It was filled with basic information for the applicants, like the purpose of UA, what is expected, and all that. Taking a closer look, he spotted the large “C” that was filled out in an empty box labelled “Testing Grounds”.

“Where’d you get?” Nagito whispered to him.

“C. What about you?”

“Awe dang!” Nagito’s face fell. “I got A. I guess we won’t be together for this one.”

“I figured as much.” Hajime said, and when Nagito raised his eyebrows at him, he continued. “Well, it’s probably so that you’ll be separated from your friends. That way you can’t work together and have an advantage over other participants who are trying out all on their own.”

Nagito hummed thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”

“Alright, you rotten oranges!” Dupli-Lady caught their attention again. “With that being said, it’s time to start the practical test! Make sure you do your best kiddos. And, if you pass your test and are lucky enough to land into the hero course’s class 1-B, I’ll be seeing you there as your homeroom teacher!”

-

Standing in front of the large gate that led to the inside of the battle area didn’t help the nervousness building up in Hajime’s stomach.

Looking around, there were so many others who looked way more competent than him. Most people were preparing, whether it was settling their nerves, doing exercises, or whatnot.

“Excuse me?”

The soft, femenine voice startled Hajime, and he quickly whipped his head to the side to be met with soft, green eyes staring back at him. The girl, dressed in a dark, gothic outfit, continued to speak. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“From where I was standing, you seemed as if you were about to pass out.” Her green hair masked the presence of one of her eyes, draping over it. She kept her gaze locked on Hajime. “I came by to see if you were feeling alright?”

“Oh.” Did he really look that bad? “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. It’s just the nerves kicking in.” He chuckled.

“I see.”

The megaphone that was placed on a tall pole leaning over them beamed to life, initiating the countdown before the doors opened. With the voice reaching 5 seconds, Hajime steadied himself, preparing to run faster than he’d ever gone before.

4.

Hajime closed his eyes.

3.

He let out a shaky breath.

2.

He opened his eyes.

1.

His gaze wandered back to the green haired girl, who looked back at him with a gentle smile.

BEGIN!

“Good luck.”

And before he knew it, he felt his feet take off into the opening doors. This was it.


	3. The Entrance Exam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the entrance exam underway, Hajime needs to devise a plan in order to get enough points to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I just wanted to say that means a lot to me if you're reading this, and as long as you're enjoying this story, then my job here is done! Enjoy ^^

It’s almost like a stampede as heavy footsteps sound out all around Hajime. He himself runs into the testing grounds, modelled after a city, as fast as his legs can carry him. Everyone scatters, most looking for their targets themselves. Hajime just keeps running forward, hoping that he’ll run into one of the robots sooner or later.

To his luck, it happens. Turning the corner of a building, he’s left face to face with a giant hunk of metal. He can see the robot’s camera zooming in on him, with its target acquired.

And for some reason, Hajime just can’t seem to move his feet.

His face pales. Why couldn’t he move? It was as if his feet were suddenly frozen to the ground, the fear inside him bubbling up. He didn’t think this through. Running into battle like this, he was extremely vulnerable. His quirk allowed him to copy quirks, but without touching anyone,he was just like an ordinary person. As the robot lifts its large, robotic hand to the air, Hajime’s eyes quickly dart around, looking for something, anyone, anything to help him out.

The robot stops briefly, and for a second, Hajime thinks that maybe it was malfunctioning. But then the robot’s head bursts open, and a huge rock (or piece of metal? Hajime wasn’t sure) went flying through it. It wobbles, off balance, and another piece of debris flies through the air, hitting the robot and finally knocking it down to the ground.

Hajime looks around to find the source of the rocks, his eyes landing on a short, blond boy standing just behind from where the robot was. They lock eyes for a moment, before he smirks at Hajime.

“Thanks for the distraction.” The blond boy called, before turning on his heel and dashing away, presumably to rack up some more points. Speaking of which, Hajime was still at zero, and he knew that he didn’t have much time left. He needed to start moving.

Running towards the sounds of destruction, Hajime finally reached the center of the city, where most of the participants, as well as robots, seemed to be at. He stood there for a moment, surveying his surroundings. People were fighting the robots everywhere he looked. Explosions were coming from his left side, while crashing and grunting came from his right. Behind him was the sound of water spraying, while in his front, a trail of fire followed a boy on top of a robot.

Hajime needed more points. With the way he was now, he stood no chance of getting in. So, with a deep breath, Hajime began running.

He approached a blonde girl with a crazy look in her eyes. She seemed to have some sort of explosion quirk, blowing things up left and right. Hopefully he would be able to use it without the repercussions being too bad. He swiftly moved past her, swiping his hand in order to touch one of her pigtails, effectively copying her quirk. With a new source of power in him, he approached a robot that was in the corner. He stopped just in front of it, and extended his hands to nearly touch it. Squeezing his eyes tight, he felt the tension building up in his hands again, before letting go.

The force of the explosion knocked Hajime back, tumbling onto the floor with a hard thud. Okay, ouch, he wasn’t expecting that. Opening his eyes, he focused his attention back to where the robot was now falling to the ground, a hole going right through it. He did it. He finally got some points.

A searing pain in his hands stopped his momentary joy, and he turned his attention to the palms of his hands. They were slightly burned. Great. He had suspected as much. With a quirk as powerful as an explosion, there were clearly going to be some repercussions. If he was going to keep using this quirk for his remaining time, he’d have to be cautious about how much he used it. Keeping that in mind, he continued on, his eyes now set on another robot that seemed unoccupied by anyone.

Thankfully, the robot seemed to be more focused on another participant, allowing Hajime to swiftly climb on it, reaching the top of its head. Now in position, Hajime placed his hands onto the head, allowing an explosion to be released, effectively destroying the robot. Jumping off, Hajime looked back at his hands to observe the damage. Burn marks were starting to appear on his skin. At this rate, he would probably only be able to take one more explosion. He needed to start looking for other ways to take on these giant hunks of metal.

However, as he tried coming up with a plan, a distant scream suddenly caught his attention. He turned around to be greeted by a large group of people running towards him, and behind them…

One of the zero point robots rolled in, larger and scarier than Hajime had anticipated. It didn’t come as a surprise to him that the others decided to flee. Hajime was about to do the same himself when he heard a loud, pained cry coming from the direction of the robot.

Lying on the floor was a girl with wild black hair, multiple streaks of color in it. She was hurt, evident from the scrapes on her skin, and she was trapped under some rubble. As the robot slowly edged closer to them, her wild, purple eyes somehow met his, and he saw a fear in them that just wouldn’t allow him to run away from the situation. _I want to become a hero to save people in danger,_ Hajime thought. _There’s no way I can leave this girl here!_

And without a specific plan in mind, he ran.

-

_“Look, I know you keep complaining about how far behind you are compared to everyone else,” Nagito said, eyeing the bruises littering Hajime’s body. “But you really need to take a break. This is borderline destroying your own body!”_

_“It’s fine.”_

_“It’s not.”_

_“Yes it is.”_

_“Hajime…”_

_With Nagito sounding so disappointed, Hajime couldn’t help but finally give in, emitting a loud sigh. “Fine, I’ll take a break.”_

_Nagito cheered with glee, unpacking two water bottles and sandwiches from his bag, tossing one of each to Hajime. They sat down on a bench as Nagito began to talk._

_“If you’re really insistent on training, how about you tell me about your quirk?”_

_Hajime quirked an eyebrow at him, taking a bite of the sandwich in his hand. “Didn’t I already tell you? My quirk is copy. Are you feeling okay?”_

_Nagito sighed, pouting. “That’s not what I meant!” He said exasperatedly, waving his arms around. “What I mean is, now that you’ve been working with this quirk for a while, have you been able to pin down what exactly you can do with it? Like, limitations and whatnot?”_

_“Oh. You should’ve just said that.”_

_Nagito threw a piece of bread at him._

_“So?” Nagito pried. “Tell me about it.”_

_Hajime placed a fist under his chin, pulling an overdramatic thinking pose that made Nagito crack up. “Let’s see… Obviously I can copy a person’s quirk, but only for a limited time. As of now, my time limit is up to 5 minutes.” He pauses, taking a sip of water before continuing. “I can use bulking up quirks like yours, or other usually damaging quirks like fire and electric type quirks. But that’s at the expense of damaging my own body. I’m copying quirks from people who’ve been using them for years, so my body doesn’t have the same kind of protection from them as their users do.”_

_“That could pose to be a big problem.” Nagito stated._

_“Yeah, I know. That’s why I want to try and get as strong as possible._

_“You sure it’s not just to impress me, Hinata?” Nagito smiled, wiggling his eyebrows. Hajime scoffed, laughing at his antics._

_“That’s the last thing I want to do.” Hajime said, chuckling at a small whine coming from Nagito. “Other than that, there’s not much else I can do… Oh, wait! I can store quirks!”_

_“You can what?”_

_“Store quirks.” Excitedly, Hajime turned to Nagito and began explaining. “It’s something I just found out not too long ago, but if I touch multiple people with the intention of copying their quirks, I can store multiple quirks in me.”_

_“I see…” Nagito murmurs. “But with the way you phrased that, it means you can also touch people and not steal their quirks either, right?”_

_“Correct.” Hajime delved back in. “When I store multiple quirks in me, I can kind of switch between them. Like I said, I can’t use two at the same time, but I can switch out one quirk and use another._

_It can be really handy in certain situations.”_

-

Hajime ran straight through the crowd of people, observing each person. Using an explosion right now on the robot wouldn’t be enough to stop it. He’d have to find some way to get up close to its head or torso before firing off an explosion. He probably didn’t have a lot of time left with the quirk either, so this had to be fast. His eyes scanned the group of people, before landing on their target.

Passing by a boy with strange, corn-like hair, Hajime made sure to lightly place a finger on him. Hajime had noticed beforehand that this boy seemed to have some kind of engine pipes on the back of his legs. Hopefully, this meant whatever this boy’s quirk was a speed type. To his luck, it seemed to be, as he felt small engine pipes beginning to form on the back of his own calves. Using the opportunity, he braced himself, imagining an outburst coming from his legs. And just like that, the engines roared to life, sending him flying at an incredibly high speed towards the zero pointer.

Hajime wasn’t used to this speed at all, barely able to keep himself up. But that didn’t matter, if he was fast enough, he would be able to scale up the robot quickly. Hajime ran right past the girl trapped under the rubble, making sure to send her a reassuring smile as he ran right to the robot. Once he was in front of the foot of it, he lifted a foot up and placed it on the huge piece of metal, using the engines to send him flying up the robot.

Hajime reached the robot’s face, where he began feeling the force of gravity pulling him down back to the ground. But, with his positioning, this battle was already over. He quickly switched the speed quirk he had for the explosion, which thankfully still was in him. The engines on his legs slowly retreated back into his body, and Hajime reached his hands out to touch the robot. Then, with a loud shout, Hajime released an extremely powerful explosion.

The power sent Hajime flying back. But thankfully, the force also knocked the robot back, as it slowly toppled over before crashing into the ground behind it. It was out of commission, which meant Hajime’s plan worked. He did it.

What he didn’t anticipate, however, was how he was going to land.


	4. Acceptance or Rejection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the exam.

Hajime began to fall.

The wind blew in his face, nearly blinding him as the ground beneath began to grow closer and closer. He had to do something before he quite literally died. He still had a little bit of that explosion quirk left. Perhaps he could use it to propel himself up when he got too close to the ground in order to soften the landing? However, if he did that, his hands might burn up, and he’d be out of commission for the rest of the test. He also had the speed quirk stored in him, but it wouldn’t really be useful unless his feet were planted on solid ground. He was running out of options, and the ground was approaching, fast.

He heard a loud yell. Looking down at the source of the loud sound, he saw the girl with multiple colours in her hair shouting to the crowd that was running away. Her leg was still pinned under the rubble, but she had a surprisingly loud voice. Thankfully, it was loud enough to catch the attention of a couple students, and they ran forward towards the scene. Hajime really hoped that one of them would have some kind of quirk that could make him float or freeze or _something_ that would stop him from landing too hard. But with the ground approaching closer and closer, and the students still on their way, Hajime had no other options. Hajime extended both of his hands to point towards the ground, closing his eyes. With this, he probably wouldn’t be able to pass the exam since his hands would be so hurt, but unless he wanted to end up in a hospital, he had no other choice. He focused on feeling the energy course to the palms of hands, building up tension. And then, he released.

Nothing happened.

Hajime’s eyes opened, seeing that he was still falling, fast. There was no explosion. Had his time limit already expired? He could’ve sworn that he had a little bit more time. He needed to be able to keep track of that better.

That is, if he would ever get the chance. But from how close he was to the ground, his chances of getting into UA now were diminished. The squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact, and hoped the crash wouldn’t be too bad.

You could imagine Hajime’s surprise when he landed on something soft instead.

Slowly, Hajime opened his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. He wasn’t on the ground, not yet. He was hovering slightly above it, laying on top of… Air?

It was some kind of platform that definitely wasn’t there before. It was soft, soft enough that Hajime didn’t feel like anything was broken, but laying on it now, it had the same texture as glass. Looking forward, Hajime watched as a black haired boy stood there, blowing out whatever that platform was from his mouth. They had made it in time, and Hajime was saved.

Hajime breathed a sigh of relief, catching his breath, before slowly making his way off the platform, hitting the ground with a soft thud. The boy walked over to him, his red eyes full of concern.

“Excuse me, but are you okay?”

Hajime looked up sheepishly. “Yeah… Sorry.”

And it seemed that now he had made sure Hajime wasn’t hurt, he took it as the perfect time to admonish him.

“What were you thinking?!” The boy yelled at him, making Hajime flinch at his loud voice. “You could’ve been seriously hurt! There was no reason for you to make such a foolish decision!”

Hajime did it because that girl was in danger, but now that he thought about it, the school probably would’ve stopped the robot from actually hurting her, so maybe there really wasn’t a reason to do what he did.

His thought process, and the other boy’s disciplining, were interrupted by the sound of a loud, angry yell, and when he looked up, he saw that boy with the weird hair that he had copied the speed quirk from. He did not look happy at all, stomping towards Hajime, before grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him closer.

“Hey! What was that all about?! The fuck made you think it was okay to steal my quirk?!” The boy yelled in Hajime’s face.

“I-I didn’t steal it, you still have your quirk.” Hajime pathetically retorted.

The guy’s eye twitched. “The hell?! Did your parents not teach you about basic manners like not to make excuses? Or do I have to pound that lesson into your skull?!”

And then Hajime couldn’t move anymore. The guy pulled his fist back, but Hajime couldn’t really register anything else except those words.

“Did your parents not teach you about basic manners like not to make excuses?”

“No excuses…” Hajime mumbled, his breath beginning to pick up.

Memories flashed through his eyes, things he had tried to suppress in order to be the stronger person for his mom and sister.

Memories of the large hand smacking him down to the floor.

Memories of a bulky shoe with iron soles digging into his side as his father kicked him around.

Memories of cries coming from his mother, sounds of glass crashing.

Hajime’s eyes began welling up with tears, his breath picking faster, now coming out in short, quick puffs.

He didn’t want to remember.

He had been told never to make excuses, and Hajime made sure he never did.

Yet here he was, making excuses. He was pathetic. So stupid, inadequate, useless, _pathetic-_

“That’s enough!”

The black haired boy that was previously yelling at Hajime as well was now pulling the large, angry boy away, using his hand to catch the fist that was flying towards Hajime’s face. “What do you think you’ll accomplish from hitting an ally?”

“An ally?” The other boy spat out. “He’s not a fucking ally to me!”

“He’s not an enemy either!”

The two continued arguing, as Hajime sat there on the floor, trying his best to control himself. He couldn’t do this now, he couldn’t panic. The test, it was still going, and he had to pull himself together to make his dreams come true. He couldn’t be weak, not now-

“TIME’S UP!”

The loud speaker startled Hajime more than it should’ve. And then the message that had been said sunk into Hajime’s head. It’s over. The test was over, and Hajime had failed. There’s no way two robots would rack up nearly enough points. The other robot he went through all the trouble destroying was a zero point robot too, so there was no gain from it. He couldn’t believe it. All the trouble he had gone through. All the training he had spent with Nagito. All the people who were cheering him on. Nagito, his mom, Himari… They were all rooting for him, and he had failed them.

The test was over, and Hajime had failed.

-

Nagito, being the good friend he was, immediately picked up that something was wrong when they met up outside the building after their tests. But Hajime couldn’t tell him. He couldn't tell Nagito that he had been weak during the exam, and failed. Not when Nagito probably did so well.

He had watched Nagito when he came out of the doors. He was talking to some other people, seemingly already having made new friends. That was to be expected, as Nagito was really good at talking to people. He was covered in scratches, but he was in high spirits. Looking like that could only mean one thing: He probably had a high probability of getting into UA. So Hajime didn’t tell him anything.

-

Hajime closed his front door behind him, too exhausted to really think about how loud he was being. Thankfully, it seemed his father was passed out on the couch, so Hajime ended up going to bed early that day, his pillow soaked with a little more tears than usual.

-

Days passed.

During those days, nothing changed. He was still just barely getting through school, feeling like a shell of who he was. He couldn’t believe that he bombed his chances of achieving his dreams.

Nagito tried to help. Hajime appreciated his friend and his efforts, but there was no way Hajime would be able to feel like himself again. As expected, Nagito did amazing in the exams. He had taken down around 11 robots, earning himself 26 points. That would be more than enough to make it.

He didn’t tell his mom about how badly he did. He felt kind of bad in a way. She was bouncing with excitement every day, waiting for his acceptance letter from UA to arrive. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that it would never come.

Sometimes, Hajime thought about the people he had seen in the exam. The blond boy who had used him as a distraction. The girl with that crazy strong explosion quirk. With how cunning those two were, there was no doubt in Hajime’s mind that they had made it. He thought about that girl he had saved (Though he didn’t really. There was no way the school would have allowed a student to be killed). He thought about the two boys, the one who saved him, and the one who had nearly punched him. The black haired boy certainly had the traits of a hero, or else he wouldn’t have saved Hajime. The other boy may be a bit aggressive, but Hajime saw his passion, and knew he could make a damn good hero.

So if all these people had a chance, then why didn’t Hajime?

-

The letter finally arrived on a late Tuesday.

His dad was at work, so thankfully his mom didn’t face any repercussions when she bursted into Hajime’s room, crying and running around, exclaiming the letter had arrived. Hajime couldn’t help but chuckle. His mom sure could be overdramatic at times.

Hajime tore the letter open with reluctant hands as his mother went to go get Himari. All of a sudden, all of the anxiety he had been feeling before began to swell up inside of him. Determined to just get his rejection to the school over with, Hajime stuck his hand inside the letter, pulling out… Some sort of tablet?

He looked down in confusion at the device as Himari and his mom ran into the room.

“Hajime!” Himari yelled out, her face lit up brighter than he had ever seen it. “Did you get in?!”

“I-I haven’t checked yet.” Hajime stuttered out, looking back down at the device. Slowly he set it on his desk, propped up against the wall so they all could see. He willed his hands to stop shaking so badly as he pressed the button on the tablet.

The screen lit up, and a video began playing. It showed the UA logo, with some cheesy hero music playing in the background, before cutting to that woman he had seen in the entrance exam. The Pro-Hero, Dupli-Lady.

“Hello, Mr. Hinata Hajime! I hope you and your household are having a splendid evening! I am known as Dupli-Lady, but you can call my Ms. Chisa!” She beamed out.

“Hajimeeee, she knows your nameee!” Hajime’s mom wailed from beside him. Himari shushed her, and they continued watching.

“First, I’d like to thank you so much for participating in the entrance exams. It makes me so happy to see that there are so many people wanting to become a hero and bring good to this world.” Ms. Chisa said, wiping tears from her eyes (When did she start crying?), before clearing her throat, and continuing. “Now, as for your results.”

Hajime sucked a breath. This was it. Even though he knew he didn’t really stand a chance, there was still a small glimmer of hope in him that somehow, he had passed.

“Let’s start with your written exam.” She said, pulling out papers. “I’d like to congratulate you! You passed that test, missing only two questions! Impressive!”

“Hajimeeeee!” His mother cooed at him, hugging him tightly, while Himari congratulated him from his side. He laughed and thanked them, but… There was still one more portion left.

“And, for your practical.”

This was it.

Ms. Chisa’s grin slowly faded, and she began pacing back and forward, the camera following her as she explained.

“In the exam, you had scored a total of 5 battle points.”

Yeah, just as he expected. He let out a deep sigh, not registering the hand that was placed on his shoulder.

“But, don’t give up hope just yet.” Ms. Chisa said, her smiling slowly starting to spread back onto her face. Hajime’s eyes instantly snapped up to the screen. “We may have been tallying up your battle points, but there was another criteria that we kept a secret: Rescue points.”

No way.

“As you know, during your practical, you abandoned the test in order to save a girl trapped under rubble. Her name is Mioda Ibuki, by the way, if you were curious.” Chisa winked before continuing. “Your bravery then impressed the school judges.”

This couldn’t be happening.

“Hinata,” Chisa said, her smile impossibly wide. “What school like ours would be able to turn away someone who is so dedicated to saving people.

Himari gasped from one side of him, while his mom began to cry, wrapping her arms around him.

“You may have scored 5 battle points,” Ms. Chisa explained. “But you managed to earn 60 rescue points! This brings up your score to a total of 65 points!”

Hajime felt himself beginning to cry as well.

Ms. Chisa smiled at the camera warming, her arms spreading open like an invitation. “Hinata Hajime…

Welcome to UA High!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He did it!! Our boy made it!


	5. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of school, and Hajime's got a lot more than he bargained for from his class.

“WE DID IT!”

Nagito’s loud screech through the receiver was the first thing Hajime heard when he called Nagito the next morning and told him the good news.

“Wait… That means you got in too?!” Hajime smiled through the phone. “And wait a sec, how’d you know I got in?”

“If you’re calling me so late at night right now, that only means one thing.” Nagito explained. “You would probably just wait till tomorrow if you didn’t pass. But to answer your question…” He can hear the smile on Nagito’s face. “YES! I did pass! We made it!”

“It all paid off…” Hajime replied. “Everything we worked so hard for.”

“I told you to stop being such a downer!” Nagito scolded. “I knew we’d get in from the beginning!”

“S-So, do you know what class you ended up in?” Hajime asked, effectively changing the subject.

“Oh, yeah, let me get my paper.” Nagito said, and the sound of papers rustling followed suit. “Let’s see… I made it to the hero course!”

“So did I!”

“We’re gonna be heroes!” Nagito exclaimed happily.

“What class are you in?” Hajime probed.

“I am in… Class 1-B!” Nagito replied. “Oh, that means I have Ms. Chisa as my homeroom teacher! What about you?”

Even though Hajime was ecstatic that he made it into UA, he couldn’t help but feel the corner of his lips pull down slightly. “Oh… Um, I got into the hero course too! Though I’m in class 1-A…” Hajime looks back at his acceptance paper, scanning through the words. “With… Mr. Izayoi?”

“Huh.” Nagito huffed out. “Well it kinda blows that we’re not in the same class, but hey! We both made it to the hero course! I couldn’t be happier right now!” Nagito’s loud voice pierced through the phone’s speaker, causing Hajime to pull back a bit while chuckling.

“Yeah, me too. I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of whoever my teacher is, though.” Hajime said. “All of the faculty at UA are Pro-Heroes, and you’re the biggest hero fanboy I know.”

“If I could hit you right now I could.”

“But you can’t.”

Nagito huffed from the other line, and Hajime could already imagine the pout Nagito was wearing. “But to answer your question, I may like heroes, but I don’t know _everything_ about them. Like their real names and stuff.”

“That would explain it.” Hajime said. He contemplated whether or not he should search the web for his new teacher.

“Anyways, as excited as I am about this, we need sleep.” Nagito said. “We may have a spot in the hero school, but we still have to attend class in our boring ol middle school.”

Hajime laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Goodnight, Nagito.”

“Night, Hajime!”

-

Summer vacation flew by. While most other people spent it hanging out with friends, travelling, lounging by the sun, Hajime used this time to continue exploring and solidifying his quirk, as well as his physique. He was probably working himself a little too hard, he admitted (Even Nagito took some days to have some fun), but with Hajime’s goal in reach, he just felt too excited to do anything but. Besides, the exercise would help him release that pent up energy in him.

But soon enough, August rolled by, and Hajime was standing in front of the highest ranked Hero-Training school in Japan next to his childhood best friend.

“You’re quite popular.” Hajime noted when he caught Nagito waving at a boy with long, dark hair.

“Hm? Oh, that’s just someone I met at the entrance exam.” Nagito explained. “I actually don’t know anyone here. Just recognized a few.”

“That’s… Reassuring?” At least Hajime wasn’t walking into this new experience alone.

The inside of the school was huge and very polished, as to be expected. With the bell signalling that they needed to get to their first class, Hajime and Nagito climbed the large staircase leading up, going up the steps until they reached the third floor.

“Even with all the training that I’ve done,” Nagito panted out, out of breath. “Nothing could’ve prepared me for scaling those stairs.”

Hajime rolled his eyes and laughed, continuing down the large hallway. It was packed with people who were trying to find their classrooms, meeting up with old friends, or simply socializing with new people.

“I gotta admit, Nagito.” Hajime muttered, the two large doors that read ‘1-B’ and ‘1-A’ in sight. “I’d be a nervous wreck right now if you weren’t here.”

“You’re telling me!” Nagito exclaimed. “Even with you here, I’m so nervous I feel like my heart is about to pop out of my chest!”

“Is that from nervousness or excitement?”

Nagito ducked his head, grinning sheepishly. “If I said more so excitement, would that make you more nervous?”

They continued down the hall, and soon enough, their feet were planted on the blue floor as they stood in front of the huge wooden door, a large ‘1-B’ painted on with red.

“This door is huge…” Hajime whispered.

“Do they have giants here or something?!” Nagito quipped.

“Well… This is it.” Hajime turned to Nagito, who, even after all his excitement, still looked like his legs were about to give out. Hajime couldn’t say he was any different. “We can meet up during lunch and exchange first day stories. Sounds good?”

“Y-Yeah.” Nagito replied, wringing his hands together. “Well, good luck Hajime.”

“You too, Nagito.”

The wooden door opened, closed, and then Nagito was gone. For a moment, Hajime was alone.

He willed himself to calm his nerves as he took a deep breath, slowly lifting his feet and dragging them to the next room over. It looked relatively the same from the outside, and huge wooden door (That was honestly bigger than it needed to be) that loomed over Hajime. The only difference was that instead of 1-B, ‘1-A’ was scrawled out in red.

Hajime took another deep breath, let it out, and lifted his head up. First impressions were important, and he wasn’t going to be seen as a sweaty mess by his new classmates.

“Here I go.” Hajime murmured to himself, as he opened the large wooden door. It creaked slightly, and he could already hear the loud talking of his classmates inside. Planting one foot into the classroom, Hajime took his first step into his future. This was it.

-

The first thing Hajime noticed when he stepped inside was the large array of colourful people. Most of them were sitting in desks that were aligned in rows. Four desks in each row, with a total of four rows. There were a few stragglers that were out of their seats, whether they were talking to other interesting characters or exploring their new surroundings. No one really seemed to pay any mind to Hajime, which was just fine with him, as it allowed him to quietly slink by. Each classroom had assigned seats, and Hajime was given seat number fifteen. That meant his seat would be in the corner of the room, towards the back. It didn’t really bother Hajime, he wasn’t one who tended to relish in attention either way.

Careful not to disturb any conversations, Hajime wove his way through the classroom until he found his seat near the window. He sat down, setting his bag down, and inspected his surroundings. From where he was sitting, it would probably be easy to avoid paying attention in lectures. The window next to him provided the perfect distraction, and his seat was positioned so that if he angled himself right, he was just out of sight from the podium in the front, where his teacher would be. It’s unfortunate, though, considering Hajime had no intention of doing so. Sure, he wasn’t really fond of being in the front of the class, but he had worked so hard to get here, and he was going to make sure it was well deserved.

“Oh, hey! I know you!”

A loud, wild voice shook Hajime out of his thoughts as he looked around the class, attempting to locate the source of the voice that had addressed him. It didn’t take him long, considering how loud the girl’s voice was, and his eyes landed on the source. It was the girl from the entrance exam who had been covered under the rubble. Her jet black hair was still wild, streaks of colour littering it. The top of her hair was styled up to resemble two horns. Definitely a strange class.

“You’re the guy who saved me!” The girl yelled out, causing Hajime to wince at the sheer volume of the girl. Did she not know how to tone it down a bit?

“I, uh, didn’t really do much. I’m sure the school wouldn’t have let you get hurt…” Hajime stumbled out, suddenly put on the spot.

The girl laughed, slapping Hajime gently on the back of his head, before leaning down and snaking an arm around his neck like they had been friends for years. “Don’t be such a downer, buddy! Take my gratitude!”

“Ah, then… You’re welcome?”

“That’s more like it!” The girl said with a fist to the air as a sign of victory. “Oh, we don’t even know each other! Sorry, haha, I was probably a little overbearing there!”

A little was an understatement.

“I am the amazing, the talented, and the pretty, ‘I’, ‘Buki’, ‘Mio’, ‘Da’! Put it together and what do you get? Ibuki Mioda!” The girl shouted out, reciting her name as if it were some sort of chant.

“You’re gonna scare him away like that, Mioda.” Directly across the room from Hajime, a small blonde girl was smirking at the two. “I mean, the fear in his eyes is already telling me he’s an easy target.”

“That’s Saionji for you!” Mioda belted out with a laugh. “I didn’t catch your name either!”

Oh, right. “I’m Hinata. Hajime Hinata.”

“Nice to have met ya, Hinata!”

“Nice to have met you?”

“Don’t worry about her.” A hand placed itself onto Hajime’s shoulder, causing him to whip his head around, finding himself face to face with a rather tall boy with green, wavy hair. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” He chuckled, putting his hands up in surrender.

“No worries.” Hajime waved him off. “You two know each other?”

“No idea who he is!” Mioda yelled out gleefully.

“Nah, but out of all of our new classmates, her loud persona is the easiest to pin down.” The boy explained with a smile. “Rantaro Amami, by the way.”

“Hinata.”

With a nod, Amami continued on, taking the seat right behind Hajime. Mioda seemed to have gotten distracted by another conversation, dropping herself straight into the middle of it. Well, he had a moment of peace now.

That moment was quickly interrupted, however, when the door to the class was pulled open, a dull thud resonating through the class that seemed to catch the attention of everyone in the class. Standing there was a tall man who wore a serious expression. “You done here, or do I need to wait longer for your attention?”

Slowly, those who were standing around began to clamber towards their seats as the man strode towards the podium, setting down some kind of binder. His eyes glazed over the students in their desks before speaking. “Welcome to the hero course class 1-A. I’m your homeroom teacher.” His voice couldn’t have been more devoid of emotion.

“Woah, so you’re Mr. Izayoi then!” Mioda said from her seat. The older man shot an unimpressed look at her.

“That’s right.”

Hajime allowed his eyes to look the man up and down, taking in his appearance. His sharp brown eyes, almost red, were a clear contrast from his light, blond hair and pale skin. He wore a large, bulky red trench coat that reached past his knees. When he received his acceptance video to UA, he had contemplated looking up his teacher, but decided against it as to not hold any expectations. Looking at him now, though, he didn’t recognize him as any hero he’d seen on TV before. Maybe Nagito would know him?

He thought back to his friend who was in the class next to his. He had Ms. Chisa, the bubbly and cheerful woman who had delivered him the news on the video. How lucky.

“I’ll be taking attendance first, and then we can move on to what I have for you. You know the drill.” Mr. Izayoi looked almost bored as he pulled up a clipboard with a few papers stacked on top. He pulled a pen from his pocket, uncapping it, before beginning to read off the names. Though usually rosters were in alphabetical order, Hajime assumed that this roster might be based off seat number, so his teacher would be able to put the name to a face. Hajime wouldn’t be called until much later.

Mr. Izayoi scanned the paper, landing on the first name. “Celestia Ludenberg.”

Across the room, the girl dressed in black, gothic clothing elegantly raised her hand up, speaking a clear and precise, “Present.”

“Peko Pekoyama.” The stoic gray haired girl raised her hand in acknowledgement, keeping her silence.

“Hiyoko Saionji.” Saionji cheerfully said, “Here!” in a voice that was all to innocent to belong to her.

“Ibuki Mioda.” Mioda jumped out of her seat, declaring a loud here, but was quickly silenced by his teacher as she dejectedly slunk back into her seat.

Izayoi, who began to look bored, started to pick up the pace, almost not even waiting for a reply. Which, considering all the seats were filled up, meant he only needed to see who’s name he was calling.

“Mikan Tsumiki, Kirumi Tojo…” The quivering girl in the front stuttered out a here while the green haired girl that had wished him luck in the entrance exam raised her hand.

“Angie Yonaga, Tenko Chabashira.” Yonaga chirped out a here, and Chabashira followed suit (Did that girl have a tail?)

“Maki Harukawa, Mondo Owada, Korekiyo Shinguuji, Kaito Momota…” Harukawa and Shinguuji both gave a nod of acknowledgement. Momota yelled out a passionate ‘here, and…

Oh, great. The boy who had nearly beat him up was in this class too, apparently named Owada.

“Kiyotaka Ishimaru, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu.” Ishimaru, the dark haired boy that had saved him before, let out a loud ‘here’, signalling his presence, while the blond boy that had taken down the first robot Hajime was in the exams, Kuzuryuu, grunted at the sound of his name.

“Hajime Hinata.” For a second, Hajime didn’t know what to do. Should he say here? Would that be too overdramatic? Maybe he should just raise his hand like others did? But would that make him look cold and unapproachable?

Hajime nodded instead, like a boring person.

“And Rantaro Amami.” Amami slightly raised his hand in a friendly greeting from behind Hajime. Izayoi sighed, apparently having been fed up with attendance alone.

So these were his classmates. He had to say, while there were a lot of interesting people, some who intruiged him, and some who scared him, he couldn’t help but feel excited. Would they become close friends as their high school years went by? Or would he be left out as the outcast? Judging from how Mioda had sparked up a conversation with him earlier, Hajime doubted the latter would happen.

“Now then,” Izayoi began talking, snapping Hajime’s attention to his teacher. “It’s time for your first lesson.”

From the other of the podium, Izayoi picked up a large, bulky bag, (Which Hajime couldn’t help but wonder if the bag was always there, or if Izayoi had come in with it somehow) and dropped it on the floor next to him.

“Take a PE tracksuit and change into them in the bathrooms. Meet me at the gym in ten minutes.” Izayoi directed, pausing for a moment before an unnerving smile slowly spread on his face. “It’s time to show me why you got into this class.”


	6. Operation Talk-To-The-Loner-Dude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime notices a lack of friends, but seems content on not doing anything about it. Fortunately (Or unfortunately) for him, someone else doesn't seem content letting that slide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little shorter, but hopefully the next chapter will make up for it! :)

The tracksuit itself wasn’t too bad, in Hajime’s opinion. It was slightly baggy on him, but was still able to let him move around with ease. It matched everyone else’s too, which meant no one had an advantage or disadvantage over everyone else. All the students were gathered in the gym, attention focused on Izayoi, who began to explain what was in store for them.

“Your first exercise will be simple. Consider it a first day of school perk.” Izayoi said. “I have a list of about 7 different tests that you all will be participating in, ranging from ball throwing, to long distance runs, to simple workouts. I’m sure you’ve all had something like this during your middle school days, correct?” Hajime nodded at that, as did most others. “Well, here’s where it differs. This time, you’re all allowed to use your quirks however you’d like to your advantage.”

While the other students let out small cheers and smiles of relief, Hajime felt his face pale instead. This rule put him at a huge disadvantage. His peers had a multitude of different quirks that they could use whenever they wanted. Hajime’s Copy, on the other hand, only worked if he touched another person.

This also brought up another point. In what category would his quirk fit in? Assuming that Izayoi would want the students to only use their own quirks, how would that work in Hajime’s favour? He had a quirk, yes, but it relied on other already existing quirks. If you copied another quirk, would that be considered using someone else’s quirk, or using his own?

Hajime was expecting some sort of orientation during the first day, but this just threw a wrench into his whole thought process. He shouldn’t be surprised, considering the internet told stories of how UA teachers weren’t bound to normal school schedules, and were able to run their classes however they saw fit. But if doing training on the first day already is what Izayoi had in mind, then Hajime was really going to have a tough time. He’d have to think about what he could do later, but for now, he’d only have to rely on his physical strength and stamina to get him by in this examination.

-

It didn’t come as a surprise when Hajime scored the lowest of all his classmates. That still didn’t stop a wave of disappointment to punch him in the gut. It was only the first day, and the thought of already letting down his teacher wasn’t really something he was looking forward to.

To Hajime’s surprise, however, Izayoi didn’t call Hajime out, or show any signs that he was disappointed. Instead, he turned to his class, directing his speech to all of them.

“I’ve scored and ranked you all on this leaderboard, as you see. But this exercise wasn’t to try and embarrass you, nor was it to boost your ego.” Izayoi explained. “Instead, I want you to focus on where you stand on this leaderboard with your quirk and your abilities right now, and how you can improve.”

“For example, those who ranked lower, like Hinata, Tsumiki and Shinguuji.” His eyes were directed at Hajime, and even though his near red eyes were intimidating from a distance, in that moment Hajime almost felt like Izayoi was looking at them with a hint of fondness. “Don’t take this as humiliation, but as a chance to turn it around and rise above those who bested you. And for those who scored above your other peers,” He looked in the direction of Harukawa, Tojo and Pekoyama. “Don’t let this cloud your mind with thoughts that you’re better. There’s always room for improvement, and now that your other classmates will be looking to train and get to the top, that’s even more reason for you to work hard and keep your position.”

With those words, Izayoi parted from the gym, instructing them to change back into their uniforms and head to the cafeteria for lunch.

And even though Hajime placed last… He felt a strange source of determination burning within him. He decided to take Izayoi’s words to heart, and not let this be taken as a chance to look down on him, but as a chance to rise above the others and show them how far Hajime had come from his original last placement. With hard work, Hajime would show them all.

-

“Hajimeee! Over here!”

Hajime was glad that his best friend had a tendency to be extremely loud, because he probably would never have found the white haired boy in the large crowd of students. Hajime turned around to see Nagito waving at him with a smile from one of the tables, and sitting around Nagito were three people Hajime had never seen. Hajime flushed a little at the thought that Nagito had already made some friends while Hajime was being seen as weak and vulnerable by his class already.

Hajime shook those thoughts from his head. He had already told himself that he wasn’t going to let that beat him up, but use it as an experience to grow.

Hajime walked over to the table, taking a seat directly across from Nagito. “Hey.”

“Hajime! Today was so fun!” Nagito beamed at him, the epitome of happiness. “Oh, but before that, let me introduce you! These are my friends. We’re all in the same class.” Nagito began to gesture to each person at the table. “This is Nanami, she likes to play video games, just like you!” Nagito pointed at the girl next to Hajime, who looked at him with soft, pink eyes.

“You like video games too?” Nanami asked him, and Hajime was only able to nod before she began her interrogation. “What’s your favourite game? Or genre? Do you like older games or the newer ones? I personally don’t have a preference, I really love all types of games!” The questions kept rolling in, causing Hajime to feel a little flustered from all the attention.

“You’re gonna scare Hajime away, Nanami!” Nagito cheerfully replied, saving Hajime. Nanami simply nodded before returning to whatever game she was playing on her phone.

“Anyways, that was Nanami.” Nagito laughed. “This is Kamukura!” Nagito bumped shoulders with the long haired boy who was sitting next to him. Kamukura hummed in reply. He certainly didn’t have much to say.

“And this over here is Shirogane!” Nagito turned to his other side, where the girl with glasses sat. She waved at him cheerfully.

“U-Um, I’m Hinata. Nice to meet you all.”

Shirogane smiled at him while Kamukura simply nodded. Nanami was too absorbed in her game to notice Hajime talking.

And with introductions out of the way, everyone went back to what they were doing before. Nagito and Shirogane were having an animated conversation with Kamukura, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. Little shooting noises came from Hajime’s side, where Nanami was playing her games.

And Hajime was happy for his friend. Nagito was extremely charismatic, able to put a smile on anyone’s face. He may have his little quirks every now and then (especially surrounding his own quirk, where he’d usually strip to activate it), but he was a good guy. Nagito deserved to feel happy. And so, Hajime was happy for him.

But a small, little part of Hajime betrayed him, feeling a little… Was it sad? Dejected?

He felt left out. Nagito was able to already meet interesting people, and here Hajime was, at the bottom of the leaderboard, friendless, and already feeling dejected.

UA wasn’t all that Hajime thought it was.

-

“Hey, hey! Look over there!”

Mioda’s loud voice drew the attention of the other three sitting at the table with her. “I spy with my little eye some suspicious behaviour!” She sang out, pointing over at a table where a colourful group of people were having what looked like a riveting conversation. Well, almost all of them.

“Isn’t that Hinata?” Amami voiced from beside Mioda, to which she nodded vigorously. “What’s so strange about him?”

“He’s not talking!” Mioda declared, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s a clear sign of a loner!”

“So what if he ain’t talking?” Kuzuryuu spat out, resting his feet on the table. Pekoyama looked at him from beside him disapprovingly.

“You don’t think those people are leaving him out, do you?” Amami asked.

“Maybe he doesn’t even know those people!” Mioda exclaimed.

“If he didn’t, I highly doubt he would’ve sat there…” Pekoyama stated quietly, but was overshadowed by Mioda’s loud yelling.

“ _Obviously_ , we have to save him!” Mioda said, waving her arms around. “We can’t leave a fellow classmate behind, can we?!”

“Well, we actually can…” Kuzuryuu said.

“I’m glad you guys agree!” Mioda replied. Kuzuryuu sighed with annoyance. “And since we’re all in agreement, we have to do something about it, right?” She looked at them expectantly, waiting for an answer. Amami nodded slowly, with Pekoyama joining in.

“Great!” Mioda gleefully said. “Then with that, Operation Talk-To-The-Loner-Dude is now in full effect!”

-

The rest of the day rolled by, and before Hajime knew it, he was back in his seat the next day, waiting for Izayoi to arrive. It was only the second day, but Hajime already could guess that Izayoi worked on his own schedule.

Hajime jumped when he felt a hand place itself on his shoulder, and he whipped around to see Amami smiling at him. “Hey, how’re you doing?” He asked.

“Oh, uh…” Hajime stuttered out. He wasn’t really expecting to make conversation with anyone today. “I’m good. You?”

“That’s good to hear. Same here.”

Amami took his hand off Hajime’s shoulder, but continued to look at him. Hajime decided to break the silence first. “So what did you need?”

“So straightforward, aren’t you?” Amami chuckled out. “Kuzuryuu will like you.”

At the mention of his name, the small blond turned around from in front of Hajime to face the two. “Don’t bring me into your conversation.” He muttered out.

“Now, now Kuzuryuu. Mioda said to give the whole socializing thing a shot, remember?”

The boy huffed, before turning back around. Hajime quirked an eyebrow at Amami. “Sorry, he’s just like that. A little grumpy, but I’m sure he’s a good guy deep down.”

“Right…” Hajime said, unsure of where this conversation was going. “So… What did you want again?”

“Oh, right!” Amami said, about to explain when the classroom doors opened up, and Izayoi strolled in. Amami shot him a knowing look. “Later.”

Hajime turned around, thoroughly confused by the day already.

“Alright class, today will be another training day.” Izayoi explained. “I’ll be taking you all to Ground Gamma for the day to work on an exercise I like to call ‘Hero vs Villain Training’. But before we get to that…” Izayoi trailed off, opening his binder placed on the podium and taking out some papers. “I suppose I’ll need to explain to you all your regular school schedule.”

“Obviously, I’m your homeroom teacher, as well as in charge of teaching you the Hero Studies and Training. But you’ll have other classes throughout the day, too. This may be a hero training high school, but it’s still a high school.”

“Throughout the day you’ll be having various subjects, such as English with Kizakura, Literature with Gozu, Hero Art History with Andoh, and Mathematics with Sakakura. I expect you all to stay on top of those subjects as well as your hero training. It will be tough, but that’s what you all signed up for, right?” Izayoi finished up and closed his binder.

Chabashira raised her hand from the back of the class. “Mr. Izayoi, you said that we’ll be doing Hero vs. Villain training. What’s that all about?”

“Oh, right.” Izayoi began to explain again, looking bored from all the talking. “I’ll explain what that’s about when we get there, but first…” Izayoi trailed off, and the classroom door burst open. Walking in was a woman with short, strawberry hair, wearing some sort of fluffy coat. And in her hands was a multitude of bags, each one containing the name of each student in class.

“Hi, Sohnosuke darling~” The woman cooed at their teacher. He blinked at her in response.

“Ruruka.” He acknowledged her before turning back to the class, leaving the woman with a pout on her face at the lack of attention. “That’s Andoh, your Art History teacher. And these,” He took a couple of bags from Andoh, before the two began walking around the class, passing each bag around to their owner. “Are your prototype hero costumes.”

The class erupted in conversation and cheers at the mention of hero costumes. Hajime admitted, even he was getting a bit excited.

“Hero costumes!” Amami exclaimed from behind him. “Hey, what do you think they’ll look like?”

“I’m not sure. I guess they’ll probably be fitted based on our quirks.” Hajime theorised. “Though, usually hero costumes are modified by the heroes who turn in forms of improvement to the people who make the costumes, so ours might just look like regular clothes for now.”

“Hmm…” Amami mumbled in response. “Well, that kinda blows. But it’ll be nice to wear something a little cooler than our school get-ups, don’t you think?” He replied with a smile.

Hajime nodded at him, before Izayoi walked up to him, passing him a bag with his costume. Hajime took it from his teacher, mumbling out a thank you, before peering inside. The costume was mostly in black it seemed, though there was a white shirt and a blue tie mixed in it was well. The thought that someone made this just for Hajime made him smile.

Izayoi and Andoh finished passing around the bags, before returning back to their spots in front of the class. “Right now, your costumes are nothing too flashy. But wearing them while training will give you an idea of what you can add to them to make them easier to move in, as well as to improve the way you use your quirk. You can turn in a costume form to the support course later, but for right now, change into your costumes. I’ll see you at Ground Gamma.” Izayoi nodded at them, before turning to Andoh. “Make sure they get to the right place, okay?” Andoh chirped a sound of affirmation in response, and Izayoi left. She turned to the class of aspiring heroes.

“Alright everyone, look alive!” Andoh exclaimed. “Your journey starts here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I basing Hajime's hero costume on Monoma's?... Perhaps ^^


	7. Hero Vs. Villain Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The class is pitted against each other in a new training exercise, and Hajime finds himself having to do things the hard way due to the hot-headed nature of his partner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay, sooo this fic started off as more of a crossover between two fandoms that I liked, but then I thought, "You know what? A little romance never hurt anyone."  
> And so here we are. Still, the bigger focus is on Hajime's journey to be a hero, so there'll still be a lot of action packed stuff.

The trip to Ground Gamma was a relatively short one, but it helped Hajime get adjusted to wearing his new costume.

He was getting pumped for this exercise. He’s already excited that it was a fighting type training session to begin with, which meant that he’d actually be able to show off and use his quirk in combat. But this also meant he’d be able to see his other classmates in action. He’d made some acquaintances recently, like Mioda and Amami, but hadn’t thought to ask them about their quirks. So now, not only would he be able to observe them, but he could also analyse their fighting styles.

Not to mention, the costumes are pretty cool.

Looking at Hajime and his class from an outsider’s view, they didn’t look all that flashy. Yeah, they had their new costumes, which were slightly more colourful get ups than what you’d usually see, but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. Izayoi had told them that over the course of their time here, they’d be able to see what their costumes were lacking to increase their capabilities, and put in their requests to change up their costumes. There was already so much to look forward to, and Hajime was pumped to see it all.

“Heeey! Hinataaa!”

As they approached the large training facility, that loud, familiar voice caught Hajime’s attention. He turned to see Mioda, Amami, Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama approaching him. He had an inkling that Mioda and Amami were on good terms, but he was a little surprised to see people so reserved like Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama to be in their friend group as well.

“These costumes are so cool, don’t you think?!” Mioda exclaimed, bouncing around him. “I already feel like, _way_ more professional in this!”

Mioda’s get up, just like the rest of theirs, wasn’t anything too special. The colours of her clothing were a darker scheme and all mismatched. She wore fishnet leggings, with one of her legs covered in some sort of bandaging. Her skirt was kept relatively short (for mobility, Hajime hoped). Her top was purple and blue, and was all shredded up, exposing the black vest she wore underneath. Her signature horns were still intact. It was very punk rock, a look that suited her, despite all the strange fashion choices.

Hajime blinked at her.

“I know, it’s a bit to take in.” Amami chuckled out, patting him comfortingly. Amami’s costume consisted of a blue sweater, with wide sleeves that reached his elbows. His shoulders had some type of green padding on them, and he carried a brown bag around his shoulder, which jangled as he walked. “But you gotta admit, it does make us feel a little cooler, right?”

Hajime nodded. “What’s the bag for?”

Amami’s hand rested on the top of the bag, pulling it open to reveal an assortment of metals and flat objects. “It’s to help with my quirk.” Amami explained. “You see, I can freeze anything I touch into place. It’s helpful for moving around quickly and restraining foes, in a fighting sense.” He closed the bag again, before pointing a finger at Hajime. “By the way, your costume is really cool.”

It wasn’t really anything too special. His outfit included a pitch black tuxedo that split into two tails, nearly reaching his ankles. He wore a white belt with a small pocket watch attached to it. Hajime had added the clock as his own personal touch; It would help him keep track of how much time he had with a quirk. “Ah, it’s nothing much.” Hajime began, rubbing the back of his head.

Kuzuryuu looked him up and down, before fixing his gaze away from Hajime. “You look good.” He scoffed. “Take the damn compliment.” Pekoyama smiled and nodded from his side. Kuzuryuu’s costume was similar to his, a black and white suit. He wore a belt that had an assortment of guns and firearms attached to it (Hajime hoped they weren’t real). Pekoyama, on the other hand, had an outfit similar to a typical schoolgirl outfit, albeit the black and red colour scheme, and the weird cuts and slits all over it.

“Uh, thanks then.” Hajime chuckled out sheepishly.

“Alright everyone! We’re here!” Andoh suddenly shouted from ahead, causing Hajime to jump. “Sohnosuke will be waiting for you inside. Good luck all~!”

The class entered the facility, modelled to resemble a city. There were tall buildings scattered around, abandoned and slightly decrepit. Izayoi stood in the middle of the street leading to the entrance.

“Looks like you all made it.” Izayoi said, scanning his class. “Nice costumes.”

“So we’re doing combat training today?” Momota shouted out, looking a lot more excited than the rest of Hajime’s classmates.

“That’s right. I’ll explain the exercise now.” Izayoi began, bringing out a box with slips of paper inside. “You’ll all be paired in teams of two, randomly decided based on a drawing. Then, two teams will be chosen and pitted against each other. One team will be the heroes, and the other the villains. The villains will be situated somewhere inside a building. Their job is to protect a large weapon inside the building. The villains will do this by either capturing the heroes with a capture tape that will be provided,” Izayoi pulled out a roll of white tape from his pocket. “Or by holding off the heroes until the time runs out. The heroes must locate and touch the weapon in order to win. Again, another way to win is by capturing both villains. However, you must do one or the other before time expires.”

“Oh, and by the way.” Izayoi added, grinning menacingly. “Knocking out the other team is also an acceptable way to win in this battle. I’ll call you out if you go too far, but thanks to our skilled nurse, you can rough each other up as much as you need to.”

“W-Wait! Um, if the h-heroes are going into this b-blindly…” Tsumiki stuttered out quietly. “Would t-that put them at a disadvantage?”

“Obviously, dipshit.” Saionji loudly stated in reply, sneering at Tsumiki. “Haven’t you noticed that heroes are constantly at a disadvantage in the real world? Or is your brain fried?” Tsumiki yelped and mumbled out an apology.

“In retrospect, Saionji is correct.” Izayoi said. “When you become heroes, you’ll constantly be put against villains who know everything about you, including your quirks and weaknesses, while you’ll know nothing about them. Think of this as a chance to improve not only your physical strength and usage of your quirks, but also the ability to strategize.”

Finished explaining the training to the class, Izayoi grabbed the box and began to draw two slips of paper at a time. “Alright, time to pair you all up.” He read the names off the papers, before smirking, his eyes sparkling in amusement. “The first team will be Owada and Hinata.”

Fantastic. Hinata slowly glanced over at his teammate, only to see Owada scowling back at him. “As if!” Owada yelled out, walking up to Izayoi. “Why can’t we choose our own teams? I don’t wanna work with that stupid copycat!”

Hajime felt his heart twinge in hurt. Was he really that unlikable? Sure, he knew his quirk relied on others, but surely it wasn’t too bad… Was it?

“Owada, get back in line.”

“Like hell I will! I ain’t putting up with this!”

“Owada, that is no way to address the teacher!” Ishimaru yelled out from the group behind the larger man. “Get back over here and respect what Mr. Izayoi gives you!”

“What are you, some goody two shoes?” Owada sneers at the black haired boy. To his credit, Ishimaru doesn’t crumble under his gaze.

“Jeez, you sure are obnoxious for a hero in training.” Harukawa muttered out, ignoring the shout directed at her from Owada. “Obviously this is part of the whole experience too. Heroes are constantly having to team up with others that they don’t know, some of which they might not even like. The thing is, are you willing to save people despite the circumstances,” Harukawa then smiled mischievously at Owada. “Or are you gonna let your pride get in the way? Cuz the latter doesn’t sound very heroic to me.”

Owada growled at her, but, seeing as he was overpowered in the conversation, gave up and huffed as he stomped back over to his spot.

“If you’re done, then I’d like to continue.” Izayoi said, directing a glare at Owada. “I won’t tolerate this again. Next time, I’ll have you sit out and you’ll lose all credit for the day.”

Hajime looked down, unable to help feeling like it was his fault for the violent outburst. Now, he would have to put up with Owada’s disdain for him during combat, which meant that there would probably be no cooperation between them. This wasn’t going to end well.

Izayoi seemed content with the silence from Owada, and began to read the names of the other teams. There was Kuzuryuu and Tojo, Harukawa and Chabashira, Saionji and Yonaga, Momota and Shinguuji, Amami and Tsumiki, Pekoyama and Mioda, and finally Ishimaru and Ludenberg.

“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, here are the first two teams fighting against each other.”

Izayoi reached into a new box, containing the names of each pair, and drawing two at random. He read them silently to himself, before flipping them over for the rest to read. “Hajime and Owada will be the heroes, against Momota and Shinguuji, the villains.”

Hajime’s opponents began talking at this same time.

“Oh, hell yeah! We’re going first!” Momota yelled out, raising a fist in the air.

“My, what an interesting match up this is.” Shinguuji mused, a hand to his chin. “I wonder what sort of techniques I’ll be able to observe…”

Hajime couldn’t feel any more nervous right now. For one, he has no idea what sort of quirks his opponents have, which already puts him at a huge disadvantage. If push comes to shove, he could always touch them and use the copied quirk to discover what it is, but what if his body wouldn’t be able to handle it? He had to be cautious. And plus…

Hajime snuck another glance at Owada, and was nearly startled out of his skin when he saw the larger boy glaring back at him. His opponent didn’t like him at all, which meant that the chances of them coming up with a strategy would be close to zero. Hajime sighed, placing a hand on his head. How was he going to do this?

-

While Izayoi took the rest of the class to another building to observe the match, Hajime and Owada stood outside of the building that Momota and Shinguuji were prepping in, waiting for their signal to start. They sat in eerie silence, but Hajime knew that he had to break the ice and come up with a plan. If they acted separately, they were sure to lose.

“Um…” Hajime started, and Owada’s eye twitched. Alright, not off to a good start. “Look, I know you don’t like me. But we’re partnered together, and I wanna win this. So we need to work together for right now and come up with a strategy.”

“You think I need you to win?” Owada huffed out, crossing his arms. “I don’t know what kind of ability you have that lets you take my quirk. Frankly, I don’t care. But I want you to listen to me.” Owada stood up, walking up to Hajime and peering down at him. From Hajime’s angle, Owada’s death stare was incredibly intimidating. “Don’t get in my way. I can win this all by myself.” Gritting out that sentence, Owada turned his back to Hajime, walking back over to where he was sitting.

“That’s not how this works!” Hajime said exasperatedly. “I know you’re really strong; I saw it myself! But we shouldn’t underestimate our opponents! They got into this school for a reason.”

“So you’re sayin’ I’m too weak to take them both on?” Owada growled.

Hajime sighed in frustration. “No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. Look, my quirk can let me copy things! If you distract them enough, then I can-”

“I’m not your fucking distraction!”

If looks could kill right now, Hajime would be six feet under. The fiery flare Owada sent him was enough to make him shut up and back off. “I’ll win.”

With that declaration, an alarm rang, signalling that the timer had begun, and that the pair were now allowed into the building. Owada wasted no time; He kicked open the front doors of the building, a loud bang echoing throughout the halls. Hajime winced. They shouldn’t be doing this. Instead, what they should be doing is getting in quietly in order to get the jump on the villains. But despite Hajime’s protests, Owada ignored him completely, running in, the engines on the back of his calves propelling him faster than a normal human could go. 

_Mondo Owada! Quirk: Engine. He can travel at extremely high speeds with the engines on the back of his calves._

Hajime decided that if Owada wasn’t going to cooperate with Hajime, then he’d have to do things himself. Running around to the back of the building, Hajime found a ladder that went up the wall of the building leading to the roof. This would make Hajime’s job a lot easier. With shaky hands, he began to climb.

Hajime’s plan was simple, really. The idea was that he and Owada would get in the building stealthily, crawling through a window. Assuming that the villains thought it through, the weapon would most likely be placed in the middle of the building; Not too close to the entrance or the roof, both of which where common entrances and exits were found. This meant that by getting in through a window near the middle of the building, they would have been more likely to find the villains. Then, all they would have to do is sneak around till they found their targets. Owada would provide a distraction using his speed quirk, granting Hajime time to sneak past the villains. From there, he could do two different things; Either get to the weapon before the villains saw him, or touch one of them while they were distracted and inherit their quirk to use against them.

But that was all thrown out the window. Now Hajime had to act on his feet. His plan now was to keep it relatively the same. With Owada’s loud entrance, their opponents would certainly hear him, and maybe even send one of their own to check for his comrade. This left Hajime with an opening to the weapon. His hope was that since Momota was the stronger of the two, he’d go down and look for Owada while Shinguuji stayed and protected the weapon. Hajime knew that he shouldn’t underestimate his opponents, but there was probably something that he knew for certain about him; His bad performance in class would actually help him so far. With his low scores, Momota and Shinguuji were underestimating him. Hajime’s physical strength and quirk weren’t much compared to everyone else, but his agility made up for that.

Hajime eventually reached a window right in the middle of the structure. He quietly opened the window and hopped through. Now, Hajime just had to scale through the hallways until he found the room with the weapon. The hallways were pretty quiet, considering that Owada was inside. This meant that he was still at a lower level.

As Hajime would find out, this would severely put him at a disadvantage. As Hajime was about to turn the corner, a fist flew out of nowhere, colliding with Hajime’s chest and sending him flying back with a loud thud. Groaning, Hajime slowly stood back on his feet, rubbing the area he had been hurt. He turned to face his attacker: Momota.

“So you two ended up working separately after all then.” Momota smirked. “That means that you’re probably weaker on your own. Well, I can’t necessarily say I’m above taking advantage of that!”

Momota reached into his pocket, pulling out pieces of metal; Screws, needles, and other accessories like that. Hajime watched and prepared himself as Momota threw them up in the air, and the items stayed in the air, floating around Momota. Momota laughed to himself, a devilish grin painted on his face.

“Have fun trying to avoid this!” He yelled.

Hajime watched in terror as the floating items began to fly straight at him, their target acquired.

“What the-?!” Hajime found himself yelling out, leaping to his side and narrowly avoiding being bombarded by nails and screws. He hit the ground, and when he turned around a new sight awaited him: The metallic items that were previously thrown at him were now changing course, turning to face Hajime once again, forcing him to run away. Hajime turned the corner, narrowly avoiding Momota’s fist again, and began to speed through the corridors, ducking left and right as he tried avoiding flying objects.

“You can’t escape!” Momota yelled out, chasing him with glee. “Once I have my sights on you, it’s over!”

_Kaito Momota! Quirk: Poltergeist. He can telekinetically manipulate objects and people around him. His weight limit is roughly around the weight of himself._

Hajime continued to try and run, not knowing what to do against this kind of power. It seemed that Momota was controlling these objects somehow. But if that was the case, then…

Hajime grinned then, a new plan in mind. He stopped in his tracks, keeping himself low to the ground as he turned to face Momota, who was closing in on him. How would his power work against him, Hajime wondered.

After a small countdown to steel his nerves, Hajime began running straight for Momota.

“Feeling brave, are we?” Momota laughed out. “Well, I do love a good fight! Come show me what that quirk of yours can do!”

That’s what Hajime was counting on. The only time they had been able to use quirks around each other so far was during their small test on the first day, and since Hajime’s quirk needed contact, he wasn’t able to use it, which meant one thing: Despite is overconfidence, Momota had no idea what Hajime’s power was. And, in the words of Momota himself, Hajime wasn’t above taking an advantage of that.

From what Hajime understood, Momota planned to use this attack to drive Hajime away, meaning that he wouldn’t be expecting Hajime to fight back. And, if Momota did expect Hajime to come his way, there’s no way he would know that just a little touch would make this a fair match. So Hajime threw himself in the direction of all the metallic items propelling towards him, in a direct path towards Momota. While Hajime was quick on his feet, he couldn’t dodge some of the screws and bolts thrown at him, sending a throbbing pain through his body as each one hit. But that didn’t matter; If he could just touch Momota…

Finally, Hajime got close enough to his opponent, and Momota braced himself to fight, pulling a fist back and sending it flying towards Hajime. It was a direct impact on Hajime, but he wasn’t really planning on dodging. Instead, as Momota’s fist drove itself into Hajime’s cheek, he used the small opening to lay his hand on Momota’s arm.

Momota, clearly not expecting it, pushed Hajime away from him, sending Hajime tumbling to the floor. But it was all he needed.

“There…” Hajime breathed out, all the running catching up to him. “Now we’re on an even playing field.”

Momota paused where he stood for a moment. “What?”

Attempting to mimic what Momota had done before, he held his hands out towards all the flying parts. Momota’s power seemed to be controlled through his mind, so Hajime imagined all of the items flying towards him. And, to his surprise, it worked. The nails and metallic pieces began to fly towards him, circling around him the same way they had Momota.

“What the hell?!” Momota shouted in confusion. “How’re you doing that?!”

Hajime simply grinned, not planning on giving his secrets away anytime soon. He watched Momota reach his ear up to an earpiece, with the other presumably with his partner. “Shinguuji, I’ve found Hinata. He has a quirk that’s really similar to mine, keep guard!”

That wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but Hajime wasn’t planning on telling him that anytime soon. Instead, Hajime used the time Momota had started communicating with Shinguuji to run away, the metallic objects still circling around him as protection. Momota had been quick to find him, which meant that Hajime’s theory was right; The weapon was on this floor. He ran the same direction his foe had come from, following the path until-

Hajime was stopped when his feet suddenly were lifted off the ground. He felt his body being floated up, and he wasn’t able to move. His eyes scanned the room, before he realised what was causing it. Momota had been trailing behind him enough to get close to him and somehow use his quirk on Hajime himself. He was able to do that?

“You didn’t think that my quirk only worked with non-living things, did you?” Momota taunted. “As long as it’s not heavier than I am, I can lift anything I want into the air. I can also control it however I want. Like this.”

In an instant, Hajime was sent flying towards Momota. He yelped in surprise, gaining speed as he was about to collide head first into Momota. But he had one more trick up his sleeve. Glancing down at his belt, he took a peek at his clock. Three minutes. He still had time. So, he willed his mind to go blank and concentrate on all the objects around him.

And then, he sent them all flying towards Momota at an extremely fast pace.

Momota clearly wasn’t expecting it, immediately dropping his hold on Hajime in favour of raising his arms up to protect himself. With Momota distracted, Hajime sent the items between the gaps of Momota; In between his arms and body, between his legs, and everywhere that had cloth dangling about. In a matter of seconds, Hajime was finished; Momota was pinned to a wall, screws and needles stabbing themselves through the cloth of Momota’s costume.

He took down one of his opponents, but he couldn’t waste time now. Momota wouldn’t stay there for long, and he was so close to the weapon. So, Hajime took off, Momota yelling for him behind his back.

-

It only took a few turns, but eventually, Hajime was able to find the room that contained the weapon. But when he ran in, an unexpected sight had awaited him.

It seemed Hajime’s fight with Momota stalled him long enough for Owada to reach the room first. But… Something was off. Owada wasn’t moving.

He simply stood there in front of the weapon, and standing next to it was Shinguuji, watching Owada with an eerily calm face. His eyes drifted over to Hajime, his expression not changing in the slightest.

“Owada!” Hajime yelled out, running over to his teammate, and stopped to observe something truly bizarre. Owada’s eyes were completely glossed over, void of the fiery passion they were usually filled with. His face was one of surprise, which looked unnatural on Owada, who was always so angry and overconfident.

Panicked and confused, Hajime looked over to Shinguuji, who was simply watching him curiously. “How nice of you to join us, Hinata.” He said. His voice was smooth and delicate, but that just added to how weird and unnatural this situation was. “Owada was nice enough company, but I think I prefer you to him, Hinata. He’s quite loud. Don’t you agree?”

Hajime just watched him, slowly reaching his hands in his pocket. He glanced down. One minute. He still had a shot. Having stored some of the items that Momota had into his pockets, Hajime threw them up into the air, freezing them with his mind.

“Oh, dear.” Shinguuji put a hand over where his mouth would be, covered by a black mask with a zipper. “Not much of a conversationalist?”

Hajime ignored him in favor of sending all the items he had towards Shinguuji at high speeds. And then Hajime started running. With the amount of objects flying towards Shinguuji, he’d have no time to dodge while also stopping Hajime, as he ran for the weapon. All he had to do was touch it, and then he’d win-!

“Momota, now.”

The weapon was just out of reach from Hajime when he was sent flying backwards, knocking the wind out of him, and was delivered straight into the arms of Momota, who stood at the doorway and now had his arms wrapped around Hajime to restrain him.

“What?! When did you-” Hajime began, but paused when Momota tightened his grip, and Shinguuji waltzed over.

“You were so focused on your teammate that you didn’t notice Momota arriving.” Shinguuji explained. “Very poor judgement on your part, Hinata. Don’t underestimate your foes. Now, are you ready to give up now?”

Hajime gritted his teeth, glaring at Shinguuji. “I’m not giving up… Not this easily-!” He growled out, but then stopped.

Suddenly, his vision became blurry, and his body slumped in Momota’s arms. Hajime was terrified as he realised he suddenly had no more control over his body. He tried to move his arms, but they stayed still at his side. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t move his mouth.

“ **Look at me.** ”

Hajime’s eyes snapped up to where Shinguuji was looking down at him, amused.

“ **Tell me you give up.** ”

“I give up.” Hajime spoke dully, completely out of control. If Hajime could wince at his words, he would. Just what was happening to him?

“And just like that, we win.” Shinguuji said, looking at Momota with a nod. Momota immediately released his grip on Hajime, who’s body just stood there, and pumped his fist up in the air as a sign of victory.

“Nice job, dude!” Momota exclaimed, holding his hand out for a high five. Shinguuji stared at him. “Good strategy too, by the way!”

Shinguuji shook his head and walked away, and suddenly, Hajime was snapped out of whatever trance he was in. He slumped to the floor, out of breath, and thoroughly disappointed. Owada seemed to be in the same situation as Hajime, moving around again. His temper was already flaring up as he stomped over to Shinguuji, an accusatory finger pointed in his face.

“What the hell was that?! What did you do to me?!” Mondo spat out.

“Do not be so hostile, my friend.” Shinguuji replied, not bothered at all by Owada’s outburst. “I was simply using my quirk to my advantage, just like the rest of you.”

_Korekiyo Shinguuji! Quirk: Brainwashing. Once an opponent answers his question, a flip is switched in their mind, forcing them to do whatever he wants. He only brainwashes when he wants to._

A bell rang out, signalling the end of the match. And once again, Hajime was completely beaten.

-

Hajime spotted Kuzuryuu waving him over when he stepped into the building with the rest of his classmates. He waltzed over to him, a little unsure of what to do. If anything, he seemed to be the most against talking with Hajime. Mioda, Amami, or even Pekoyama weren’t around either, so things could get awkward really fast.

“Uh, hey.” Hajime waved, smiling nervously. “What’s up?”

Kuzuryuu looked away. “Mioda left me strict instructions to get you over here when your match was done. Just followin’ orders.” The smaller boy replied. Figures as much. Hajime sighed, preparing for a long, awkward silence with the other boy as they watched the other matches, when he suddenly spoke up again. “By the way… Good try.”

“What?” Hajime said.

“On your match, dumbass.” Kuzuryuu replied, irritated already. “Kinda strange that your quirk is so similar to that purple haired guy though.”

“Oh, that’s not it!” Hajime exclaimed. Kuzuryuu quirked an eyebrow up. “Uh, my quirk actually gives me the ability to copy other people’s quirks. So I was just really using his own quirk against him!” Hajime laughed out sheepishly, before looking down to the ground, a forced smile still plastered onto his face. “It’s nothing special, really. I don’t really have a power of my own.”

Kuzuryuu stared at him, before scoffing and punching him lightly. “Stop sulking, jeez.” He ordered. “A quirk like that means you gotta think on your feet, right? That’s already pretty damn impressive.”

Hajime had never thought about it that way. It was true; Hajime had to observe the quirks of those he was up against and make a plan on how to use it against its user on the spot. It was definitely hard work, yet he never noticed it himself… “Thank you, Kuzuryuu.” Hajime replied, smiling at the blond boy. “That’s really nice of you.”

Kuzuryuu’s eyes widened slightly at Hajime’s soft tone, before a blush crept onto his face. He looked away from Hajime. “Yeah, whatever.” He muttered out.

Kuzuryuu seemed embarrassed, so Hajime quickly tried changing the subject, trying to avoid making the other boy any more uncomfortable. “A-Anyways, where’s the others? Amami, Mioda and Pekoyama?” He asked.

Kuzuryuu jerked his head towards the screen, displaying security camera footage of the ongoing match. “It’s their turn. Peko and Mioda’s against Amami and Tsumiki.”

Hajime hummed in response. He stood there for a moment, before taking a step forward, slightly closer to the smaller boy. He nudged Kuzuryuu softly, smiling gently at him. “Who do you have your bets on?”

Kuzuryuu smirked back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I intentionally give Kaito, who is terrified of the occult, a quirk with a name based off a ghost? Why yes. Yes I did.


	8. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime is faced with the feelings of his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, sorry, but! The next chapter is going to be intense, so I hope you're ready :)

When Hajime walked into his class the next day, he was immediately dismayed by the sight of Kuzuryuu smiling innocently at him. Hajime sighed, taking his seat in between him and Amami.

“Pay up.”

Hajime sighed louder, emitting a giggle from Kuzuryuu as Hajime fished in his pocket, pulling out ten dollars from his pocket and reluctantly handing it over to his classmate.

“What’s that all about?” Amami piped up, watching curiously from behind Hajime.

“We made a bet about who would win during your fight, and I lost.” Hajime muttered, making a point of placing his head on his desk and sighing miserably.

“You betted on us?!”

“To be fair, I was betting for your victory.”

Amami just laughed, shaking his head. The three of them continued to mindlessly chatter until Mr. Sakakura opened the classroom doors, signalling it was time for their math class. As they all prepared their things, Hajime felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face Amami.

“What’s up?” He asked.

“Well, I was going to ask you yesterday, but…” Amami explained, before smiling hopefully at Hajime. “Hinata, do you wanna eat lunch with us today?”

-

The cafeteria was once again packed, a bit to Hajime’s dismay. Not that he expected any less from the school filled with so much potential, but it was a bit uncomfortable to be around so many people on his part. Hajime headed towards where he saw his fellow classmates sitting on a table: Mioda was waving her arms around enthusiastically to catch his attention, while Amami also waved him down, albeit more toned down. Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama didn’t seem to notice the commotion, deep in conversation with each other instead. If they didn’t even bat an eye to Mioda’s dramatic waving, he couldn’t imagine what they normally put up with.

But, even then, they still took time out of their day to invite Hajime to spend time with them when they didn’t have to. That thought put a smile on Hajime’s face as he waved back at them, walking over to their table, and effectively missing the pair of eyes that were staring at him in confusion.

“That’s the boy that usually sits here with us, right?” Shirogane pointed out from Nagito’s side. He nodded. “What’s he doing over there?”

“Hm, I’m not sure.” Nagito replied, watching him as he approached the group. Hajime was nodding absentmindedly at the girl with horns, before laughing at something the small blond said. “Maybe those are his classmates? Or friends he made?”

“Are you jealous?”

Nagito felt his face heat up at the words that came from Kamukura’s mouth. He immediately shook his head, waving his hands around in an attempt to explain. “N-No! Not at all! I was just wondering why he wasn’t coming to sit with me!” He laughed out, before he slowed his movements, thinking. “It’s just a little weird, that’s all. We’re usually always together. It’s been like that since we were kids, anyways. So, it’s different.”

Kamukura stared at him, like he was studying the other boy. Finally, he turned back to his food. “You shouldn’t feel jealous.” He stated confidently.

“Huh? What makes you say that?” Nagito asked, before registering what Kamukura was implying. “W-Wait, I already said I wasn’t jealous!”

Kamukura ignored him in favor of explaining. “He doesn’t seem like he makes friends very easily.”

“That’s not true!” Nagito exclaimed, feeling compelled to defend his friend.

“Nagito, he almost never talked to us.” Nanami said from where she was sitting, eyes still glued to her screen.

“Yeah, even I have to admit,” Shirogane muttered. “He wasn’t really too talkative.”

Nagito sighed. “I mean.. I guess Hajime has trouble with making friends… But he isn’t really all that bad! He’s really great when you get to know him!”

“No one is saying he’s a bad person, Nagito!” Shirogane replied from his side.

“He has trouble making friends, yet he is talking more with those people, who he’s sat with for five minutes, more than he had with us, who he had been sitting with for a few days.” Kamukura continued, his voice just as monotone as ever.

Nagito slowly nodded, because it did make sense to him. He was happy for his friend in that sense. Hajime never talked to many other people other than Nagito, mainly because he was always so nervous. And if those people were from his class, that means Hajime wasn’t going to be affected negatively from all the people there like Nagito had feared.

Nagito turned back to his food in an attempt to avoid the thought of Hajime spending more time with new people.

-

“Yo, Hinata.” Hajime startled at the familiar voice that came from beside him. Hajime closed his locker, having just changed his shoes, and looked beside him to face Kuzuryuu. Behind him stood Amami and Pekoyama. “Wanna walk to the train station with us?”

“Yeah, sure.” Hajime agreed. “Where’s Mioda?”

“After school tutoring, I believe.” Pekoyama replied. “She said it was fine to go ahead.”

“Oh, okay.” Hajime said, before his eyes lit up as he remembered something, or _someone_ , important. “Oh, I usually walk with my friend Nagito after school. Is it fine if he comes with us?”

“The more the merrier!” Amami said, nodding, drawing attention away from where Kuzuryuu crossed his arms, muttering out ‘ _friend?_ ’.

Nagito was already waiting for Hajime at the school gate, looking up from his phone to greet him with a cheery smile. His expression changed, however, to a look of surprise and confusion when he saw Amami, Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama trailing behind Hajime.

“Hey Nagito!” Hajime waved. Nagito waved back.

“Hey…” Nagito replied. “Who’re they?” He gestured over to the group behind Hajime.

“Ah, we’re all in the same class!” Hajime explained. “That’s Kuzuryuu, Amami, and Pekoyama.” He pointed to each one in turn. “They’re my…” Hajime stopped for a moment, considering his next words carefully, before continuing. “They’re my friends.”

Nagito raised his eyebrows. They both knew that throughout his entire life, Hajime didn’t have many friends. Nagito was the only one who had been a consistent friend to him, as everyone was eventually put off by Hajime’s anxious behaviour. So to call these people his friends… Hajime knew that even though it didn’t seem like much, it was a big thing, but Hajime was confident in calling them that.

“Nice to meet you.” Amami spoke first, addressing Nagito. “Nagito, right? Hajime talks about you a lot.”

“Komaeda, yeah.” Nagito subtly corrected. “Really?”

“Aren’t you his best friend or some shit?” Kuzuryuu asked, coming up to stand next to Hajime, and get a closer look at Nagito. “And you’re surprised by that?”

Nagito furrowed his brows. “No, I didn’t mean-”

“I apologize for him.” Pekoyama muttered out, glancing towards Kuzuryuu. “He tends not to think about his next words before saying them.” Her statement caused Hajime and Amami to laugh while Kuzuryuu grumbled something like _just you wait till we’re alone, Peko_. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, same here.” Nagito replied, smiling tightly at them. Hajime spotted his weird behaviour immediately, as they all began to head away from school. What was going on with Nagito?

-

Hajime and Nagito walked together into their neighborhood, after the rest of Hajime’s friends turned the directions of their own houses. Which meant, this was the perfect opportunity for Hajime.

“Nagito.”

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong?”

Nagito stopped. “I don’t know what you mean.” Nagito chuckled out. Hajime crossed his arms, not believing him in the slightest.

“Nagito…”

But Nagito stayed stubborn, cracking a joke and laughing. It sounded forced. Hajime began to think back to when Nagito started acting strange. He was fine this morning, recounting how his class was yesterday and all the cool things he learned about his classmates. And then… Was it after Hajime had mentioned having to pay back Kuzuryuu? It would certainly fit the time frame. As they entered school is when Hajime off-handedly mentioned it, and Nagito seemed to stay quiet for an abnormal amount of time. Then, when Hajime introduced his new friends to Nagito, he seemed almost… Angry? Was he…? “Nagito, are you… Unhappy with my friends?” Hajime asked.

“Not at all.” It was a beat before he replied, but it told Hajime all he needed to know.

“Why?” Hajime asked.

“What do you mean?” Nagito replied with another question.

“I thought… Y’know, we both know that I don’t really talk to people, so I thought that maybe… You’d be happy for me?” Hajime mumbled out, looking down to the ground. That really blows. Of course he’d drop everything for Nagito, but… He really liked these people. As weirded out as he was from them at first, they were really the only people who tried to include him in things, even when he was being stubborn about it.

When Hajime looked back at Nagito, he was no longer smiling. He dropped the facade, the orange light from the setting sun casting a shadow over his face that didn’t help the atmosphere. “I wanted you to feel comfortable. That’s why I introduced my friends to you. I was trying to help you, yet… You rejected it. Was it not enough for you?”

What? “N-No! That’s not it at all!” Hajime exclaimed, trying to explain.

“Then why? Why run away and go talk to new people when we could’ve thought something out together?” Nagito asked, starting to sound irritated.

“Nagito, I have no problem with you being friends with them! But it’s just… I don’t know, I didn’t click with them.” Hajime said. “But that’s okay, isn’t it?”

Nagito didn’t reply. And Hajime started to feel a little irritated too.

“Or maybe it’s not for you. To hell that I never have any friends anyways, right? If it’s not you, then-”

“Don’t make this into a pity party.” Nagito replied, voice seething. “I tried to help you!”

“And I found friends on my own!” Hajime yelled back. “I did something on my own for once, and you’re _mad_ at me?”

His words seemed to shake Nagito, and he stopped talking. Hajime scoffed and shook his head, beginning to walk in the direction of his house. “This is childish.”

“What was that?”

Hajime turned his head around, making sure to enunciate each of his words. “I said, this is childish!”

“Maybe it is, but it’s my feelings!” Nagito yelled at him, his voice breaking. “Why can’t you understand?!”

Hajime just looked at him. Finally, he turned around, walking away. “I don’t understand. Maybe when you have a clear head and can organize your thoughts, you can explain it to me. But I’ve got too much on my plate.” Hajime explained to Nagito, never looking back once. “Bye.”

Hajime walked into his house, quietly closing the door behind him to cease any interaction between the two. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to stay mad at Nagito, but right now they both needed to cool off. He didn’t understand why Nagito was so angry at him for making friends; He thought that Nagito would be happy. Was it jealousy? Possessiveness? Hajime wasn’t really sure, but he didn’t want to be sure right now. He just wanted to sleep.

-

The next day, Nagito wasn’t waiting for him to walk to school. He had already left.


	9. The USJ Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Class 1-A decides to do some after school training; While Hajime is having an internal battle over his friends and feelings, he soon finds himself in a physical, life-threatening battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big chapter today to make up for the previous short one! ^^

Hajime ended up meeting up with Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama, who he texted (They had swapped numbers for the bet they made), and walked with them to school. He was thankful that they didn’t bring up the topic of Nagito not walking with him, even though Pekoyama was shooting him concerned glanced every once in a while.

Though, if they weren’t able to tell anything wrong before, they would now, when they got to their lockers at school. Hajime had just closed his locker when he was able to spot Nagito from the corner of his eye. Things were rocky between them at the moment, but he needed to fix things. He wasn’t going to let the chasm between them grow because of a silly dispute.

“Hey, Nagito!” Hajime had called out, thankfully catching the attention of his best friend. However, his eyes were full of disdain upon seeing Hajime, and Hajime could’ve sworn he saw Nagito roll his eyes before turning around, walking away at a slightly faster speed then normal. Hajime had tried to catch up with him, but it was too late, as Nagito had found one of his friends (Who Hajime believed was Kamakura, if he remembered correctly), and sped off with him in tow.

Pekoyama appeared at Hajime’s side, scaring Hajime slightly because _how did she get there so fast?_

“Is everything alright, Hinata?” She asked, concerned.

“Um, yeah? Yeah, I’m okay, no worries.” Hajime felt bad for lying to his new friend, and he had a suspicion that Pekoyama didn’t buy it for a second, but it was something he should settle with Nagito alone, between the two of them later.

Pekoyama shook her head slightly. “I hope your convincing skills improve, because Kuzuryuu is not going to take that for an answer.” She replied, stepping aside slightly and pointing over to where the blond boy was stomping over to Hajime.

“What’s that dude’s problem?!” Kuzuryuu growled out, glaring daggers at Nagito’s back. “I can take him on if I need to.”

Hajime’s eyes grew wide, and immediately began trying to diffuse the situation. “N-No! It’s not like that at all, trust me!” Hajime exclaimed. “He’s my best friend, remember? I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him! It’s just…” Hajime trailed off then, trying to find the right words that wouldn’t remind him of how much he’d probably messed up. He had indulged in Nagito’s fight instead of helping him or trying to talk it out civilly, or trying to come up with some sort of solution. “We just… Had a bit of a fight yesterday, and he’s a bit mad at me… I can help but feel like I could’ve…” Hajime stopped right there, realising that he’d been saying too much.

Kuzuryuu stared at him, his brows furrowed and arms crossed, before sighing and shaking his head in a manner similar to Pekoyama. “Stick with us then, if he’s giving you trouble.” Kuzuryuu offered. “Mioda likes you a lot anyways, and Amami seems to be friendly with you.”

Hajime smiled at the boy’s generosity. “Yeah, thank you.” He replied softly. “I like you too, y’know. And you Pekoyama. Not just Mioda and Amami.” Because it was true. He was grateful for all of them. Even though Mioda had taken the initiative, they all decided to allow Hajime to keep hanging out with them.

Kuzuryuu’s face grew red as Pekoyama gave Hajime a small smile back. “D-Don’t say weird shit like that!” Kuzuryuu shouted at him, punching him in the arm. “It was just an offer! Mioda likes you around so whatever. Let’s just get to class.” Kuzuryuu threw his bag over his shoulder and walked in the direction of their classroom with a huff, leaving Hajime standing there, dumbfounded, with an amused Pekoyama at his side.

-

Mioda and Amami were already waiting for the three in class, talking next to Hajime’s desk. More curiously, however, was that some of their other classmates, such as Momota, Tojo, Harukawa and Yonaga were with them as well.

“Heeeey! Over hereee!” Mioda yelled out, waving the trio over like they wouldn’t have been able to spot her without it.

“Hey guys.” Amami greeted. “What’s going on here?”

“We wanted to get used to fighting in different types of scenarios, and against different types of quirks.” Tojo began explaining. “So we were planning on asking Mr. Izayoi for permission to use one of the testing grounds as a class after school.”

“What do ya think?” Momota piped up. “Not a bad idea, eh?”

Pekoyama raised a fist to her chin, seeming to be thinking carefully. “That would give us a good chance to strengthen our weaknesses by using each other’s quirks against each other…” She stated.

“I like the idea of fighting, so I’m in.” Kuzuryuu grinned. Hajime laughed at the statement. “What do you think, Hinata?”

It made him slightly warmer inside that his opinion was being sought out as well. Normally, he was simply a bystander, nothing more than an extra in that sense. But now he actually had a chance to contribute to conversations and events that he so desperately wanted to be a part of before. “Yeah, I’m in.” Hajime replied, subtly nodding.

With the idea settled, Hajime’s classmates dispersed, and Hajime continued talking with his friends until Izayoi finally arrived, ordering everyone back to their seats.

It wasn’t till near the end of the lesson that Harukawa raised her hand.

“Yeah, what is it?” Izayoi asked, eyes trained on his student.

“We all wanted to know if we can have your permission to train after school.” Harukawa asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What she means,” Tojo spoke up from her seat, going into further explanation. “Is that we would like permission to use one of the training grounds to train as a class after school. We thought it would be beneficial if we could fight each other in sparring matches in order to identify our weaknesses and ways to make up for it.”

Izayoi stared at her, apparently deep in thought, before nodding. “Sure, go for it.” Some of the class erupted in cheers. “I’ll write a permit for you. You can use the USJ facility, it’s not too far off from school. There won’t be anyone available to watch you though, so just do your best to keep damage to a minimum, please.” Izayoi instructed.

School went on as normal, apart from the excitement everyone now shared from being allowed to stay after school. Hajime would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited as well. After all, the only thing he’s been wanting is more time to use his quirk and improve it. This would give him the training he needed. He had already started from the bottom of the class, and failed his first exercise. He wasn’t going to let this trend of failure continue.

A buzzing from his pocket in the middle of Kizakura’s lecture snapped him out of his thoughts. He subtly took his phone out from his pocket, opening to see a message from a group chat he was added to.

**Ibuki Mioda has added Hajime Hinata, Rantaro Amami and 2 others to my favesss <3**

**Hajime Hinata** : ???

**Ibuki Mioda** : HIIIII HAJIMEEEEEE

**Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu** : wut is dis

**Ibuki Mioda** : A GROUP CHAT DUH

**Ibuki Mioda** : ANYWAYS HAJIME

**Ibuki Mioda** : EAT LUNCH WIT US

**Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu** : jesus is ur caps broken

**Ibuki Mioda has changed Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu’s username to Baby Gangsta**

**Baby Gangsta** : ur dead

Hajime laughed at his friends antics. He glanced up to make sure Kizakura wasn’t looking at him, and quickly typed out a response before pocketing his phone again.

**Hajime Hinata** : Sure :)

-

It was kind of exciting that everyone was coming together like this, Hajime thought as the class neared the end of their trek to the USJ facility. Izayoi had been severely underestimating the distance between the school and the USJ. It was nearly a fifteen minute walk for the class.

“My feet hurt!” Saionji complained aloud. “My feet feel like they're gonna fall off!”

“T-That’s not good!” Tsumiki cried, running to Saionji’s side. “F-Feet don’t normally d-do that, so I think you should-”

“It was a figure of speech, dumbass!” Saionji yelled back, glaring at Tsumiki who backed away, apologizing profusely.

Yonaga watched the scene with glee. “Nyahaha~! You two are so close that you’re fighting like sisters now!” She chirped out.

Saionji stared at her with a look of horror.

“If you have the energy to complain like that,” Harukawa muttered out. “Then you have the energy to train with the rest of us. Now look alive, we’re here.”

Stepping inside of the USJ, Hajime was immediately stopped in his tracks by how cool it looked. Surrounding the central plaza of the training facility were separate grounds that were made to resemble real life settings: A waterfall with a shipwreck, and landslide zone, fire zone. There were so many more as Hajime felt his adrenaline pumping through his veins. He fiddled with the clock on his belt out of excitement and nervousness; They had agreed to all wear their hero costumes. If they were training with their quirks, they wanted to look cool while doing it, as Mioda had stated loudly.

Ishimaru took to the front, leading the class down a large staircase, stopping when they reached the large water fountain at the central plaza.

“Alright, class! We’ve arrived!” Ishimaru yelled out, as diligent as always. “We will now be discussing who will be partnering up for the first matches, and where you shall be fighting!”

“I can help with that.” Came Shinguuji’s voice, as he stepped up beside Ishimaru. “I’ve been observing you all, so I have a fair idea of who would give you a true challenge.”

“Ew, that’s creepy!” Chabashira yelled, her face scrunched up in disgust. “As expected from a common male degenerate.”

“Maybe so, but it will help, no?” Shinguuji replied. “Now then, I believe that Ishimaru would be a formidable opponent for Hinata.”

Hinata perked up at the mention of his name. “Really?” He asked.

“Yes, I have trouble seeing why as well.” Ishimaru agreed, all his attention on Shinguuji for an explanation. 

“It's quite simple.” Shinguuji said, raising a finger. “You see, Hinata’s work is quite special, as it allows him to copy any quirk he wants, which makes him the perfect wildcard. However, he can only activate his quirk if he’s able to touch his opponent.”

“Ah, I see now.” Ludenberg said, content on taking the explanation from him. “Ishimaru’s ability to keep his distance by creating walls would prevent Hinata from getting in close, creating a difficult opponent for him to beat.”

Now that Hajime thought about it, she was right. Ishimaru’s quirk, from an outsider’s point of view, seemed like the perfect quirk for capturing and restraining, but it would also stop Hajime from using his quirk at all. He looked to the side, where Ishimaru stood. He probably should feel nervous about failing in front of his peers again, but Hajime could only feel excited to try and find a loophole to win.

_Kiyotaka Ishimaru! Quirk: Solid Air. He can solidify air to create walls or platforms with his breath. The bigger the breath, the stronger the barrier._

“Ludenberg, you can go with Chabashira.” Tojo said, contributing to the discussion.

“At least I’m not with a degenerate…” Chabashira mumbled under her breath while Ludenberg raised her eyebrows. “Why is that?” She asked.

“You have a useful quirk, but your physical combat is lacking. Chabashira can help you with that.” Tojo replied, making sure Ludenberg understood before she continued on.

“Oh, if we’re pairing people up, then Owada should go with Momota!” Ishimaru yelled, pointing at the two boys. “Momota can work on the accuracy of his telekinetic powers while Owada can work on his agility and dodging!”

“Hey, that’s not a bad idea.” Momota said, nudging Owada. “What do you think, leg boy?”

“Don’t touch me.” Owada growled out in response. Momota just laughed, assuming that he was joking. Though, from the glare Owada was sending him, Hajime didn’t think that was the case. Even then, though, Hajime realised what was happening. Yes, they were training, and yes, they were improving their quirks, but that wasn’t the only thing that would happen with this training. They were also bonding as a class. Training one on one would require communication from both sides, and plus, with Hajime’s peers directing each other and advising each other, this would only strengthen their relationship between each other. They were growing hope within each other.

“Saionji, you’re with Tsumiki.”

“What?! I don’t want to be stuck with pig barf!”

“I-I’m sorry!”

Well, almost.

-

With how much good had been happening in Hajime’s life, he almost forgot. Forgot that there’s always a calm before the storm.

“Is everyone paired up?!” Ishimaru yelled out, to which everyone nodded affirmatively. “Good! Now, we’ll be discussing which zone everyone will train in-”

The lights flickered. Hajime’s eyes darted up to them in confusion. No one else seemed to notice, but even though Hajime was a quieter individual, he made up for that by being extremely perceptive. The lights flickered once again. Something wasn’t right here.

And then, they shut off completely.

Thankfully, the sunlight seeping through the large glass dome of the USJ was plenty to keep the area well lit, but the sudden loss of some light didn’t go unnoticed by his peers this time. Hajime looked around, searching for a source of the power loss.

The water coming from the fountain suddenly ceased to spray.

“What the hell’s going on?” Owada huffed out. “This place broken or something?”

“No, I don’t think so… At least not an area belonging to UA…” Amami muttered out a reply.

Hajime backed away then when he noticed that, from the water fountain, some kind of dark purple smoke began to appear out of thin air.

“Hey, watch out!” He yelled out, catching the attention of everyone else. They all began to back away from the fountain, as the smoke began to grow larger and larger.

And then, a man stepped out from the smoke.

He was one of the oddest people Hajime had seen so far. His color scheme consisted solely of black and white, half his hair one color, and the other half the other. On his white side, his pitch black eye bore straight into Hajime, and on his black side… It was like a large gash in his face where his eye should be, and it was glowing red, as if something was being lit up from the inside of him.

The man seemed almost surprised to see the students there. “My, how unexpected.” The man mumbled to himself. His voice was so light and nearly cheerful, if not a little raspy. But that just added to the dread Hajime felt from hearing it. “We have guests. This makes things easier.” The smoke grew larger and wider from behind him, and from it, a series of strange beings began to walk out, menacing looks in their eyes.

Hajime’s eyes grew wide as he suddenly realised what was happening. He looked around, and saw Pekoyama with the same dread on her face, probably thinking the same thing.

“Those…” Pekoyama said, her voice slightly shaking, grabbing the attention of their classmates. “Those are villains.”

A few gasps rang out, as the students began to look even more panicked at the scene unfolding before them.

“Everyone, get back!” Ishimaru’s voice rang out, stepping back and signalling everyone to do the same.

“Get to the exit!” Harukawa ordered with a panic he hadn’t heard from her before. Hajime did exactly as he was told, along with everyone else. He turned on his heel and immediately began running for the front doors, trailing behind his classmates.

They had gotten close to the exit, but were stopped in their tracks when that purple mist began manifesting in front of them. Hajime yelped out, stopping dead in his tracks, causing someone else to bump into him from behind. It grew and transformed into the shape of a head and a body, as if it were a person. Was it some kind of quirk?

Hajime’s questions were answered when he began speaking. “I see… You must all be UA students.” His voice was extremely deep and booming, shaking Hajime to his core. “This works out in our favor.”

“Hey! Who are you?!” Kuzuryuu shouted from behind him.

“Who are we, you ask? Well, we are an organization who will grow into history, who’s name will make it to every newspaper, and who will be known for destroying you.” The mist explaining menacingly. “We are the League of Villains.”

From behind them sounded footsteps, and the black and white man from earlier inched closer to them, waving his hands around as he began to explain. “You see, the original plan was to trash this place a bit, lure out some of the teachers and kill them. That probably would have caught the attention of _her_.” He seethed.

“W-What? Y-You want to hurt our t-teachers?” Tsumiki exclaimed, on the verge of tears.

“W-Who?! Who’s attention?” Momota yelled at him.

The man began to laugh, hysterical and uncontrollable. He tilted his head back in glee as his eye focused on them. The gaze of someone with a dangerous intent. The gaze of someone with the intent of murder. “But killing a bunch of high schoolers will probably grab attention even faster, don’t you think?!” He cackled out.

“Kill us…?” Hajime found himself mumbling out.

“I agree.” The mist replied, before it began to grow larger, hovering over the students. “We came to this facility with a large group of people who would love to meet you. How about we let you meet them… As well as your demise?!” The booming voice shouted out, before the mist suddenly lunged at the group of students.

“Watch out!” Owada shouted from somewhere, lunging at a couple of people and throwing themselves out of the mists way. Unfortunately, it was too late for the rest of them, as the mist began to swallow them in pitch black darkness. He heard the sounds of his peers grunting and screaming out in terror, as he felt the pressure of the wind become unbearable for him. Hajime was swept off his feet, in complete darkness, and the fear he felt was overwhelming.

-

“Sohnosuke, you finished?”

“Yeah.” Izayoi called back out to the gray haired man. “Hey, Munakata. If it’s alright, my class is at the USJ right now for some after school training. I’d like to go check on them to make sure they’re doing things correctly.”

“Hm? You don’t need to ask me.”

“You’re the principal. Of course I do.” Izayoi replied, shrugging. “Just following the rules.”

Munakata cracked a small smile, and Izayoi’s goal was accomplished. “Do you want to take the bus? It’s kind of a long walk.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Izayoi dismissed, waving his hand. “The walk will be nice, anyways.” Izayoi turned and began walking away to the path where the USJ would be, sighing deeply. “I just hope those kids aren’t getting themselves into too much trouble.”

-

When Hajime could finally see again, he was horrified to find himself in mid air, hovering over a large body of water. He began falling, _fast_. Hajime couldn’t do anything but yell out then, trying to get into some kind of position that would decrease the impact when he hit the water.

Thankfully, crouching into a ball did the job well enough, and Hajime found himself in the depths of the water. What the hell was going on? They came here for training and now they’re being attacked by villains.

Hajime began swimming up to the surface, his thoughts racing. How did he get here? Was it the mist guy? He must have some kind of warping quirk. It’s the only explanation. What about everyone else? Judging from the water, Hajime assumed that he was probably transported into the shipwreck zone of the USJ. Was everyone else also scattered around?

Hajime reached the surface of the water, taking the time to take in a big breath after holding his breath for so long. He looked around, attempting to survey his surroundings…

And found himself in the path of some kind of shark-like villain who was swimming right for him at a high speed. Hajime shouted, attempting to swim away. The villain only laughed though, before opening its mouth wide to reveal a huge array of razor sharp teeth.

“Nothin’ personal, kid.” The villain laughed out. “But you gotta die! See ya!”

The villain was coming too fast. Hajime wouldn’t be able to dodge the attack, not when they were in water where this villain had the advantage. He wouldn’t be able to swim away either. He could only close his eyes and protect himself, hoping that he wouldn’t be injured too badly.

But then a gunshot rang out, piercing the air, and when Hajime opened his eyes, the villain that was previously coming for him was now sinking down, it’s head bleeding from some kind of injury.

“Hajime!”

Hajime quickly whipped his head around, spotting the familiar light haired boy standing on the ship in the middle of the lake, clutching one his guns in one hand, and extending his other hand out to Hajime, signalling for him to come to him. “Over here, hurry!” Kuzuryuu shouted.

Hajime began swimming to the ship as fast as he could, as another familiar face rounded the corner of the ship: Tojo, who now noticed Hajime in the water as well. Her face paled slightly at the sight of her fellow classmate in danger.

“Hinata!” She yelled, running to the edge of the ship and bending over the railing. As he swam closer and closer, he watched Tojo say something to Kuzuryuu, to which he nodded. Then, he watched as Tojo began to glow slightly, before she _split into two_. The two Tojo’s now standing on the ship began climbing over the railing, one hanging onto it as the other held on to her hand, creating a kind of human rope. Tojo held out her hand when Hajime was close enough, and he took it gratefully as he was pulled up out of the dangerous waters, and onto the temporary safety of the ship.

“That was close.” Hajime breathed out, gasping for air as Kuzuryuu ran to his side.

“Are you okay?!” He asked frantically. Hajime nodded.

“Yeah, j-just need to… Get myself together…” Hajime heaved. He then looked up to the two Tojos who were looking down at him. “Thank you…” Hajime said with gratitude. They both nodded.

_Kirumi Tojo! Quirk: Duplicate. She can create a duplicate of herself that she can control to do her bidding. The clone eventually fades with time, or if met with enough force to cause it to disappear._

“What do we do now?” Kuzuryuu said off handedly. “We’re surrounded by villains who are lurking in the waters.”

The moment was disrupted when another villain jumped out from the water, his skull like head containing eyes that burned with fury. “Not so fast, little ones!” He yelled out, before reaching out his hand, which made some of the water from the lake come to him.

“Careful! He has some kind of water manipulation quirk!” Hajime yelled out.

Kuzuryuu stepped in front of Hajime and Tojo, aiming his gun at the villain. “I got this guy, don’t worry!”

Kuzuryuu shot, with the bullet-like object flying straight towards the villain (Kuzuryuu had previously told him he wasn’t allowed to use real bullets, so he used substitutes that couldn’t pierce through skin, but would hurt really badly if hit). The bullet almost hit its target when the villain suddenly used the water to propel himself away.

“You missed! Kind of a bad shot, don’t you think?” The villain taunted.

But Kuzuryuu smirked back. “Nah, I don’t think so.” He replied, the villain not noticing how the bullet behind him immediately changed course, whipping around and heading straight for the back of his head.

The satisfying thud of it hitting the villain was enough to calm Hajime’s nerves for now as the villain shouted out in pain, falling back into the water with a huge splash.

_Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu! Quirk: Homing. He can control the trajectory of any projectiles he uses with extremely accurate precision, which would need really advanced training to avoid._

Eventually, Hajime was able to get himself to breath steadily again. He stood up, facing his two classmates. “Alright, what should we do now?”

“The villains aren’t attacking now, but they’re still somewhere in the water.” Tojo began speaking. “So our best course of action would be to get back to land, without going into the water somehow. But…” She stopped briefly, looking out to the water. “How do we do that?”

Hajime sighed, feeling defeat beginning to swirl within him. “I think for now, we should come up with some sort of plan.” Hajime ordered, to which the other two agreed. Hajime looked back over to the other structures with worry. “I hope everyone else is doing okay…”

-

In the landslide zone, villains were on the prowl, momentarily being stopped by the short bursts of solidified air walls being pumped out by Ishimaru in an attempt to protect him and Yonaga.

“I… I can’t keep this up for much more…” Ishimaru muttered, completely out of breath, as Yonaga took to his side in worry.

-

In the ruins zone, Chabashira yelled out as she spun around, taking down a multitude of villains with her tail. From behind her, Tsumiki cried out, the mist coming from her body able to take down some of the villains as well.

“Keep at it!” Chabashira cried, but she too was beginning to tire out. “There’s got to be an eventual end to them!”

-

In the mountain zone, Pekoyama produces blades through her elbows, startling enough to keep the villains on her side at bay. Momota was using his telekinesis on his metal objects, bombarding their attackers. Saionji attempted to fight some on herself, jabbing her rotating fingers into the side of a villain, who yelled out in pain. Another villain was able to grab at Saionji’s arm, causing her to scream out, but was saved just in time by Pekoyama, using a blade to cut at the villain.

-

In the fire zone, Amami stood by his lonesome, a group circling around him and effectively surrounding him. He held his fists up, ready for a fight, no matter what his beating heart was telling him otherwise.

-

In the frozen zone, Harukawa took down her attackers with ease, punching and kicking with eerily precise accuracy.

“Get yourselves together.” She spat out. “I haven’t even used my quirk yet, and you’re still losing? To a child?”

-

Back at the central plaza, those who managed to escape the mist looked on in horror as a large group of the villains began to march their way towards them, the monochrome man leading them.

Mioda hid behind Shinguuji as he began speaking to his comrades. “If I can get a couple to talk to me, I can attempt to use them against the other villains.” He stated.

“Once they're in my sights, they’ll be vulnerable as well.” Ludenberg offered.

“So that’ll leave me and Mioda for attacking.” Owada gruffed out, glancing at the frightened girl. “Do you think we can do that?”

With a nervous look, she nodded, her body subtly shaking. “Y-Yeah… We can do this…” She mumbled out, not sounding so sure.

The reality was, none of them were prepared to be tossed into this situation. And they didn’t have anyone who they could rely on to save them, except for themselves.


	10. Hope In The Face Of Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight for their lives continues at the USJ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii I'm getting this out as fast as I can! I'm really enjoying writing this haha. I'll edit any mistakes later, right now a nap sounds fantastic >.<

The water was eerily still. To the naked eye, it seemed like almost nothing was out of the ordinary.

However, Hajime knew that wasn’t the case. They were surrounded by villains, with no way out. He was on the ship in the middle of the lake, trying to come up with some sort of plan with Kuzuryuu and Tojo, but… Nothing seemed to be working.

“Wait, what if Tojo duplicates herself and uses her copy to distract the villains while we swim away!” Kuzuryuu exclaimed, his eyes shining with hope.

Tojo looked away. “That is a good idea, but if the villains are going after my clone, they’ll probably damage it. And my quirk can only handle so much damage before it disappears.” Tojo explained. “Besides, do you think we could swim to shore fast enough in that window of time?”

Kuzuryuu’s excitement deflated hearing that. “Oh, I see.” He muttered.

“Um, I don’t have a plan, but there is something I find curious.” Hajime said, thinking out loud. It’s been something he had been wondering since they got onto the ship itself. “Why aren’t the villains attacking us?”

His two classmates immediately looked at him, clearly thinking the same thing. Hajime continued. “I mean, we’re outnumbered and surrounded, so if their intent was to kill us, there would be no reason for them to keep waiting.”

“Stalling, maybe? If they killed us all immediately, then whoever they’re trying to lure out wouldn’t really be interested in a bunch of dead kids, right?” Kuzuryuu suggested.

“No, I think it’s more than that.” Tojo countered, placing a finger to her chin. “Perhaps, they’re being cautious because they have no idea what our quirks are?”

A lightbulb lit up in Hajime’s head. “Oh, you’re right!” He exclaimed. “There’s no way they would’ve been able to do research on us students, especially so early into the school year!”

“But that works in and against our favor.” Kuzuryuu replied. “On one hand, we’ll be able to use our quirks to take them by surprise. But on the flip side, if they’re being cautious, they won’t be underestimating us. After all...”

“We did get into a prestigious hero training school.” Hajime finished for him.

“We need to come up with a plan to get off of here.” Tojo redirected the conversation to the main topic. “I’d assume that we need to use our quirks to do so. Perhaps we should all give a briefing on each other’s quirks?” Hajime nodded at her, as did Kuzuryuu. “I can go first.” She said.

“My quirk is called Duplicate. It allows me to make a duplicate of myself. It can do pretty much anything I command it to, as long as I would be able to do the task myself. It eventually disappears after a ten minute limit, or if met with enough force from someone. While it only allows me to create one at a time, there’s no cooldown. That means I can create another duplicate immediately after the first one is taken down.”

“I’ll go next then.” Kuzuryuu offered, crouching down on the ship and signalling the others to do the same. Probably so the villains wouldn’t overhear their conversation, Hajime mused. “My quirk is Homing. It lets me control the direction of anything that my hands come into contact with. Like, if I threw a rock, I could control its pathing to make sure it hits my target.” Hajime thought back to the entrance exam, how Kuzuryuu used a rock to take down a robot that had nearly crushed Hajime. It seemed a little weird at the time to use something like a rock, but taking Kuzuryuu’s quirk into consideration, it made sense. “My quirk doesn’t work on living things, but it works on things I have indirect contact with. Like, I touch my gun, which holds the bullet inside.”

With his explanation finished, that left Hajime. “Well, my quirk lets me copy other people’s quirks. It’s really as simple as that.” Though, now that Hajime thought about it, there were a few drawbacks and things that they might need to know. “I have a five minute time limit with each quirk. I can store multiple quirks, but I can’t use two at the same time. Also, while I think I can use any quirk I want, it’ll have an effect on my body. Like, if I used an explosion quirk, my hands would start to burn.” Thinking back to that, it definitely was not fun.

They sat in silence for a moment or two, everyone’s brains racking to try and find a solution to their problem.

“Hinata.” Tojo called out, drawing his attention to her. “You could copy any quirk, right? Even one of the villain’s quirk?”

“As long as I can get in close enough to touch them.” Hajime reminded.

“Well in that case…” Tojo said, a hint of a smile on her face. “I may have a plan.”

-

“Watch out!”

Mioda’s loud warning came just in time, letting Owada narrowly dodge the villain that came flying at him. Turning his engines on, he kicked his leg up, jabbing it straight into the villain’s face.

“Mioda, do not stall. Get the teachers on the phone.” Ludenberg scolded. A trio of villains came lunging at her, shouting out and making their presence known. “Amateurs.” She mumbled under her breath as she took a step to the side, the villains passing straight past her.

“She’s open, now!” One of them shouted, as another villain, a man with some strange mask on his face, held his fingers to Ludenberg, his fingertips replaced with gun barrels. Clearly, they were planning to shoot her. Ludenberg's eyes suddenly gleamed a dangerous shade of red as she kept her gaze on the man. And just like that, nothing came out from the man’s fingertips. “W-What the?! My quirk isn’t working!” He shouted.

The villains, thoroughly distracted, had no time to react as Shinguuji came from one side, kicking and swinging, knocking each of the three villains out cold with expert combat.

_Celestia Ludenberg! Quirk: Erasure. She can erase the quirks of anyone she looks at. The effect ends when she blinks._

“I can’t!” Mioda yelled back at Ludenberg. “It’s probably one of these guys’ quirks, it’s jamming the signal!” Mioda spotted a group coming straight for her. She took a deep breath, making sure she had enough oxygen in her, before she belted out an ear shattering scream in the direction of the group. It caused them all to drop to the ground, covering their ears from the loud frequency.

_Ibuki Mioda! Quirk: Voice. She can increase the volume of her voice, creating the ability to create loud, high-pitched sounds that can disrupt hearing._

“If that’s the case, we need to come up with some kinda plan!” Owada shouted. “We’re stronger than these guys, but they got numbers on us, we’re gonna tire out eventually!”

“For someone so angry, you are surprisingly smart.” Shinguuji noted.

“Shut the hell up, mind fuck!”

“Now isn’t the time for this.” Ludenberg sighed. “We need to get out of here. If we can get through the exit, we can run to the school and get the teachers for help.”

“Good idea, let’s go!” Mioda yelled, and together, the four of them began running away from the central plaza, up the stairs to where the exit was placed at the end of a long path. They had gotten about halfway to the exit when their path was blocked by that mist again. It began to manifest in front of all of them again. “Watch out!” Mioda shouted.

“A solid plan, I must admit.” The mist applauded. “However, I cannot let you go any further.”

They were thoroughly stuck. In front of them, the warp villain was blocking their path, and from behind them, villains were climbing the stairs, hot on their tail. Ludenberg took a step back, falling to the side of Owada, and whispering to him. “You need to use your quirk and run to the exit while we distract him.” She quietly ordered him.

“What?!” He replied incredulously. “I can’t do that! Abandoning you all here ain’t what a man would do-!”

“Whatever your pride is telling you does not matter right now.” Ludenberg cut him off, speaking in a dangerously low tone. “If you stay here, fighting with us, we will all die. Including our classmates scattered around. We cannot take them on our own. You’re the fastest of all of us; Our only hope is with you.”

Owada gritted his teeth, an internal battle within him. On one hand, he couldn’t leave these guys and escape. That would be acting like a coward. But, on the other hand, if he was acting like a coward in order to save more lives than he could if he stayed….

Owada took a step forward, his engines beginning to warm up. “Keep him distracted.”

With those words, Owada flew past them, putting his engines into overheat and running as fast as his legs could take him.

“Trying to run? Not so fast, little one.” The mist taunted, beginning to make his way over to Owada. Owada kept running, even as the mist enveloped him. This is exactly what had happened to his classmates, and they had been scattered around, so it was only a matter of time before he too…

Except, he still found his feet on the ground, with the exit in sight.

“What?!” The mist exclaimed in confusion. “Why are you still here? Begone!”

“Keep going, Owada.” Ludenberg called out, her sight set on the mist. “If his quirk is some kind of mutation, then I can’t stop the mist entirely. However, I _can_ stop him from using his warping quirk.”

Mioda ran forward. “Cover your ears, Owada!” She shouted out, before producing a loud shriek in the direction of the mist. Owada held his hands up to his ears. Even now, Mioda’s voice rang through his skull. But it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been if his ears were open, so he kept running. The mist was clearly affected by the loud voice, stopping momentarily and allowing Owada to make his way out of the mist, and reach the exit. It was locked, of course, but that wouldn’t stop Owada. He dug his fingers in between the crack on the doors, beginning to pry it open.

“You fool! You’re not going anywhere!” The mist bellowed out, heading straight for where Owada stood.

The villains now had caught up to where the remaining three were at. As Ludenberg used her quirk to create targets for Mioda, Shinguuji spotted a villain with some sort of quirk that gave him tape coming out of his elbow. Perfect. He ran up to the villain, placing himself directly in front of him. It was now or never. “Why are you doing this?” He asked.

The villain smirked. “Out of the way, kid-”

But it was too late for him now. Completely under Shinguuji’s control, Shinguuji turned back to the mist. “Stop him!” He ordered.

The villain used his tape to attach it to some strange armor piece in the middle of the mist. Shinguuji had noticed it earlier, hence why he came up with this plan. If the villain had some sort of armor, that means he had a physical body somewhere.

“What are you doing?!” The bellowing voice shouted as the tape villain began to slowly pull the mist away from Owada, creating just enough time for Owada to finally get the doors wide open…

And run straight through them, reaching the outside and running at his full speed straight towards the school. Mioda cheered Owada on as Ludenberg and Shinguuji collectively sighed in relief. As for the mist villain…

“It’s over…” He said, his voice quiet. “We… Lost…”

“I hate to be the one to ruin our victory,” Ludenberg pierced the silence. “But we have villains coming straight for us.”

“She’s right.” Shinguuji said. “We must stay vigilant. Mioda, do you think you can handle it without Owada?”

“Help is coming soon, I can manage until then!” Mioda replied, her flare coming back. “Let’s do this!”

“I don’t think so.”

In one moment, their sights were set on the group of thugs coming for them, and then in the next, their whole world was covered by a purple darkness.

“W-What’s happening?!” Mioda cried out.

“Could it be..?” Ludenberg muttered.

“It is.” That familiar, deep voice replied. “We may have lost, but that doesn’t mean you children are safe. I’ll scatter you around with your friends, and you can watch them die in front of you before it’s your turn!”

-

“So, the plan is to dive into the water and touch the villain with the water manipulation quirk.” Tojo summarised. “Then, you plan to use the water you can control to keep the villains at bay while we swim away. I can also use my duplicate to keep them distracted, and Kuzuryuu can shoot any villains that get too close.”

“It’s a solid plan.” Kuzuryuu nodded. “You’re surprisingly smart, Tojo.”

“Surprisingly?” Hajime asked.

“However... There's a problem I just thought of.” Tojo said.

“What is it?” Hajime asked.

“While it is a decent plan… Our quirks are all time based.” Tojo explained. “You can only hold the quirk for 5 minutes, and my duplicate can only handle so much damage. It can also expire with time. But what happens if your water manipulation expires, and we’re still swimming away? We can only swim as fast as an average person could.”

“Well, I’ll just shoot whoever comes our way!” Kuzuryuu supplied.

“But can you handle a mob of villains with a water advantage?” Tojo asked.

Kuzuryuu stayed silent.

“So then… If that wouldn’t work…” Hajime began thinking, trying to come up with some solution. “What do we do now…”

As they mused, they were suddenly startled by a familiar purple mist that began to form from behind them. Tojo immediately ran in front of Hajime and Kuzuryuu, shielding them.

“Get back!” She yelled at them.

“Be on your guard, Hinata.” Kuzuryuu nudged him. “He could be back to finish us off.”

Hajime nodded, putting his fists up (albeit a little shakily) and prepared for the worst.

What ended up happening was Shinguuji suddenly emerging from the mist, being pushed out and onto the ground.

“Shinguuji!” They all immediately ran at his side. He didn’t seem to be injured, which was good, just a little shaken. Weren’t they all a little shaken, though?

“I’m fine, please don’t worry.” Shinguuji reassured them. He stood up, brushing himself off, before facing his peers. “Instead, feel joy. Owada has managed to escape, and is currently travelling back to the school at high speeds to get help.”

Hajime immediately felt a wave of relief flood his body, and he could help but let out an audible sigh. “That’s good.” He replied, before remembering that Shinguuji is now trapped here with us. “Oh, let me brief you really quick. Right now, we’re at the shipwreck zone, and we’re trying to figure out how to get to shore.”

Shinguuji tilted his head slightly. “Wouldn’t the logical choice be to swim?”

“Only problem is, we’re surrounded by these annoying fuckers.” Kuzuryuu spat out. “They haven’t attacked us yet, probably because they’re being careful, but that doesn’t mean they can’t attack at any time. We gotta get out of here, fast.”

“We had come up with a decent plan, but we are still missing one component.” Tojo explained to Shinguuji. “Using Hinata’s quirk to copy a water manipulation quirk, he can keep the villains at bay as we swim to land.”

“How do you know one of these villains has a water manipulation quirk?” Shinguuji asked.

“Trust me, we’ve seen it.” Hajime replied, Tojo and Kuzuryuu nodding from his side. “As long as I can touch that specific villain, I can get it. Only problem is, with my time limit, I might not be able to keep them away for as long as we need to. We need some sort of speed…” Hajime mused, trying to come up with some sort of answer to their situation. And then, looking at Shinguuji, he finally found that answer. “And you’re gonna be just that.” He smiled, now having a plan they could actually carry out.

-

“Pekoyama, what now?!” Saionji yelped, narrowly dodging the fist of a large villain coming at her. Momota quickly reached her side, punching the guy straight in his chest and sending him flying off. Mioda took her place beside Momota, yelling out at the villains in that direction, causing them to retreat at her booming voice.

“I-I’m not sure.” Pekoyama replied, feeling a bit flustered. Right now, what they were doing was keeping the villains at bay, but not actually taking any of them down, apart from Momota. “Momota’s the only one who can do distance between the four of us, and what we’re doing right now is keeping them away.”

“So let’s just let them get closer!” Mioda whined.

“Not a chance.” Pekoyama scolded. “We don’t know what any of their quirks are. Considering none of them are really using them, that means all of their quirks are made for close combat, just like us.” Pekoyama knew that she had more than enough skill with her quirk to take down most of the villains. The only problem is that right now, she was trying to avoid injuring anyone. Her blades were far from dull, and could do some serious damage.

_Peko Pekoyama! Quirk: Razor Sharp. She can produce large blades from any part of her body. Her blades are sharp and quite durable._

“As much as that sounds like a good plan, I don’t think we can keep this up for long!” Momota yelled out, his eyes narrowing on a man running towards him. “These guys clearly intend to kill us, so I’m sure there’s no problem with retaliating and roughing them up just a little!” Momota’s fist collided with the man’s face, sending him on his back.

“But-!”

“I’m not saying to kill them!” He explained. “I’m sayin’ we gotta incapacitate them!”

“From your side!” Mioda then called out to Momota, who was unaware of the woman who had somehow managed to get in close with him, her snake-like hair snapping in Momota’s direction. He barely had time to turn around before she lunged at him. Saionji, in turn, lunged at the lady, fast enough to dig her fingers into the lady’s side and spin them, causing the woman to yell out and drop to the ground. She gave her a kick to the head, knocking her out.

“For once, I’m agreeing with this peabrain!” Saionji said, eliciting a small whine from Momota at the name. “Right now, our best bet is to take them on ourselves.” Saionji took to her fighting stance, letting her fingers spin around at their usual high speeds, before doing the same with her arms.

_Hiyoko Saionji! Quirk: Gyrate. She can rotate any part of her body at high speeds akin to a drill, increasing hand-to-hand combat significantly._

Pekoyama faltered for a moment, but seeing the circle of villains beginning to close in on the three, there was clearly no chance yet. Taking a deep breath, Pekoyama let two blades protrude from her elbows. “Okay then, let’s do this.”

-

Chabashira let out one last shout before colliding her tail into the final standing villain, knocking him to the ground. “Alright, I think that’s the last of them!”

_Tenko Chabashira! Her quirk: Tail. She has a tail that she can manipulate and use as a third limb. It’s strong enough to break metal and flexible enough to capture enemies._

“Tsumiki, how long do you think your fragrance will keep them out?” She asked the shaking girl on the ground.

“U-Um… M-Maybe an hour, at most…?” Tsumiki replied, though it sounded more like a question then an answer.

Chabashira felt pity for Tsumiki, who was on the verge of crying again: Though she’s aiming to be a hero, just like the rest of her class, this was clearly too much for her to process. Hell, it was the same for Chabashira. One moment they were going to train, and now they’re fighting for their lives. It was all happening so fast it was starting to make her brain hurt. She knelt down beside Tsumiki, attempting to place a hand on her back soothingly.

“Listen, Tsumiki. We’re okay now, but our classmates might be struggling. We got lucky that we were paired together since both of our quirks are able to take down villains.” She began to explain. “But what about our friends who aren’t good with combat? Like Ludenberg, Yonaga, Ishimaru, Amami? If any of them ended up with each other, and without someone who is experienced in combat, they could be in serious danger.” Chabashira let her eyes wander to one of the windows of the withered down building they ended up in, her gaze landing on the large slope coming down from the mountain side. She turned back to Tsumiki. “Tell you what; The landslide zone is just beside here. I want to go save my classmates. How about if you come with me and help?”

Tsumiki looked at her, still a bit wobbly from their combat. She was hiccuping and close to crying again… But she wasn’t yet.

“I… I want to save them too.” Tsumiki muttered, before looking at Chabashira with a quick flash of determination. “L-Let’s go.”

-

“Hinata, you’re a fucking genius!” Kuzuryuu shouted out with glee.

“I agree, I didn’t expect such a smooth plan.” Tojo agreed, smiling. “You have my gratitude.”

“Ah, thanks.” Hajime said, blushing slightly at all of the attention on him. He looked back from where they stood on the beach. The giant water wall Hajime had created after reaching the shore was keeping the villains from following them, but it wouldn’t stop them forever.

“Using my brainwashing to control that shark villain into letting us hitch a ride to the beach.” Shinguuji said. “How truly unexpected.”

“U-Um, anyways, now that we’re here we gotta go.” Hajime redirected the attention off of him. “My clock says the water wall will only stay up for like, thirty more seconds. We gotta get out of here.”

“Right.” Tojo nodded, and they all began to take off, running over back towards the main plaza. They stopped in front of the fountain, where there didn’t seem to be anyone.

“Strange…” Shinguuji mused.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” Hajime asked.

“It’s just, when I was here earlier before being warped away, we were swarmed by villains.” Shinguuji said. “Now, it’s deserted.”

“That would probably be because they were sent to the other zones to fight our classmates.” Tojo explained, which made sense.

Hajime was about to say something about saving their class, because they couldn’t just leave them all to fight for themselves, when suddenly, _his_ voice disrupted the peace.

“You’re exactly correct. Just what I was expecting from students of UA.”

They were all startled back to reality, where Hajime noticed the familiar black and white man round the corner, smiling menacingly at them.

“Stay back!” Kuzuryuu shouted.

“Who are you? And what do you want?!” Hajime asked frantically.

“Please, one question at a time.” The man replied, holding his hands up as if they were having some friendly conversation. “Who am I? You may call me… Monokuma. As for what I want? It’s simple. I want to see the world crumble.” He began to laugh. “I want to see the hero world crash and burn. For the public’s faith in heroes to be demolished! I want to destroy everything!” His laugh became maniacal, cackling loudly.

“We need to take this guy down.” Kuzuryuu whispered to Hajime. “There’s only one of him. This shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Unfortunately, you’re wrong about that!” Monokuma shrieked, causing the two to jump.

“What? He heard us?!” Hajime exclaimed.

“You see, you four were clever enough to avoid death from my underlings. But now…” Monokuma trailed off, his body beginning to grow. His arms became larger, the muscles in his legs grew more prominent, and that sunken red eye grew way darker and terrifying.

“Now… You’ll experience pain worse than you ever have before.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh. What are they gonna do now?
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! ^^


	11. Amending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The finale of the USJ Attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11, and the end to the USJ attack is heree~  
> Also yes maayybbeee I reused a character from mha just cuz the rest of the danganronpa I have plans for later, whoopsies

Ms. Chisa had been explaining to their class about what to do in an emergency situation when the classroom door burst open with a loud thud, startling all of them. In the doorway stood a tall boy, out of breath, wearing some kind of black trenchcoat. From what Nagito remembered, this boy, Owada, had caused Hajime some problems during his training in class, but…

The description Nagito was given described him as being hot headed and angry, as well as being full of pride. But the face on the boy’s face… The panic in his eyes told Nagito a completely different story.

“Excuse me, young man, but what do you think you’re doing-?!” Ms. Chisa exclaimed, probably preparing a lecture for disrupting class, but then Owada stumbled over to her, his eyes wide.

“P-Please, you were the first teacher I could find!” Owada pleaded. “M-My classmates, we-”

Nagito’s heart dropped to the floor. Owada was in class 1-A, the same class as Hajime. If someone like him was panicking about his class, then…

“Calm down, take deep breaths.” Ms. Chisa instructed, placing a hand on the boy’s back, but Owada simply shook his head. “What’s going on?” She asked.

“The USJ!” Owada tried explaining, still trying to catch his breath in between sentences. “My class, we- We were training and- The villains, they-”

“Woah, did he say villains?” Kuwata asked aloud from Nagito’s side, and Shirogane nodded. Nagito was about to say something back, that no way there’s villains, UA’s defenses wouldn’t allow it, when Owada’s next statement made his blood run cold.

“T-There’s villains attacking the USJ, goddammit! They’re attacking my classmates!”

The whole class went silent for a split second. There’s no way villains were attacking Class 1-A. If they were, then that meant…

“Hajime…” Nagito found himself mumbling out, unable to stop himself. His breathing began to pick up.

“Hajime?” Nanami asked from behind Nagito, before her face paled slightly at the realisation. “Oh, Hinata’s in that class…”

Nagito put his hand on his head, trying to process everything. Hajime, his best friend, was in danger of being hurt, or even worse _killed_ by some villains, and Nagito… He had been so cold and mean to him. He placed his hands on his head. Hajime probably thought Nagito hated him, or would never forgive him. He might go out with those thoughts being the last thing he thought of Nagito. And meanwhile, he was just sitting here, without a care in the world, without an ounce of remorse…

What was he going to do?

-

Hajime was nearly frozen in his spot at the sight before him. The man, Monokuma, had some sort of bulk up quirk. But this was just… It was way too powerful. His muscles were literally bulging from his skin, and he seemed to grow almost two feet taller.

“Guess we’ve got another fight on our hands…” Kuzuryuu muttered to the group, but Tojo shook her head.

“No, we need to be prepared to run.” She corrected. “The villains we faced were hard enough. If this man is the boss, then we need to be extra cautious.”

And then he moved. For someone who was extremely large and muscular, Monokuma moved surprisingly fast. In a blink of an eye, he was already face to face with them all.

“Go!” Hajime yelled out, pushing the two closest people to him, Kuzuryuu and Tojo, out of the way. But unfortunately…

While Kuzuryuu stumbled out of Monokuma’s path, bumping into Shinguuji, Hajime wasn’t so lucky. The force that hit him sent him flying back, scraping against the ground. He didn’t get a chance to do anything else before a large foot was placed on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

Tojo wasn’t as lucky either, also being pushed to the floor, being held down by Monokuma’s large arm. She wriggled in his grip, trying to free herself. In an attempt to save the two of them, Hajime watched as Tojo proceeded to make a duplicate of herself. Thankfully, the duplicate was manifested out of Monokuma’s grip. The clone immediately sprung into action, running straight towards Monokuma and sending a kick straight into his face with deadly accuracy.

To both of their surprises, though, there was no sign of pain from Monokuma. Instead, he began cackling as he lunged a hand to Tojo’s clone, pinning her to the ground with his hand. And then, Hajime watched in horror as the duplicate _began to crumble to dust._

“W-What?!” Tojo exclaimed frightfully from the ground. The villain laughed.

“Oh, you poor, oblivious children.” He teased, peering down at Hajime. “You didn’t think this was my only quirk, did you?”

“H-He has multiple quirks?!” Hajime said, looking at Tojo with fright, who was returning the same look.

A loud bang rang out, coming from Kuzuryuu who decided to take a shot at Monokuma. It didn’t seem to do much to the large man however, and Hajime watched Kuzuryuu’s face pale slightly as Monokuma sneered at him and Shinguuji.

“Just be patient, little ones.” He grinned, before turning his attention to Tojo and Hajime. “I’ll get to you two after I’m done with your friends here.” Hajime began trembling as Monokuma’s free hand began to close in on Hajime. This was the same hand that had completely disintegrated Tojo’s clone. And if that was his quirk, then…

Hajime closed his eyes as the man’s boisterous cackle echoed through the building. He waited. And he waited. But then the laughing stopped, and he felt the crushing pressure of Monokuma’s foot leave him. Instead, he heard a familiar voice shout with anger and fury.

“Get your hands off my students!”

Hajime opened his eyes to be met with the sight of Izayoi digging his foot into Monokuma’s face with considerably more force than Tojo’s clone had, sending the large man stumbling back. Hajime immediately found himself scrambling off the ground, Tojo doing the same as Kuzuryuu ran to Hajime’s side, Shinguuji doing the same with Tojo. Izayoi landed on the ground, standing in front of the four of them as a kind of shield.

“Well… That hurt considerably more than the girl’s hit…” Monokuma murmured, slowly getting back onto his feet. “Your movements are way more advanced. You must be one of the UA teachers.” Monokuma’s red scar glowed red as he studied Izayoi.

“Get out of here, now!” Izayoi ordered, and his voice brought Hajime back to reality as he stood on his feet. He ran away from where Monokuma stood with Kuzuryuu in tow, and Tojo and Shinguuji following just behind. With the students out of the way, Izayoi turned back to glare at Monokuma, not moving an inch as he spoke. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you will _not_ get away with hurting my students.” He growled out, voice dripping with hatred.

“Oh, I’m so scared!” Monokuma cackled out. “You really are such a cool teacher. I’m going to have a blast ripping you to shreds!” Monokuma began running at an abnormally fast speed… But not fast enough. He had placed himself right in front of Izayoi, swiping his hand to swing and knock the teacher to the ground.

But then Izayoi completely vanished, Monokuma’s hand going straight through the space where Izayoi once was.

“Huh?” He grunted out, turning his head to look for any sign of the man, but he was alerted to his presence when he suddenly felt a strong force hit him in the stomach, causing him to drop to his knees in pain. He prepared to strike the area where the hit came from when another strong blow to Monokuma’s head sent him to the ground as well. “Where are you?!” He roared out, but found no answer. Instead, his hands were suddenly pinned to the ground, and weight was put against his back, pinning him to the ground.

“You’re not fit to fight.” The teacher’s voice came from behind him. “You clearly have nowhere near enough experience to take us Pros on.”

From behind him, the empty air began to waver as it was colored in, the man’s long, dark red trench coat reappearing in Monokuma’s vision. Just as fast as he had disappeared, the teacher was now on top of him, restraining the villain.

“You severely underestimated us.” Izayoi said, his voice monotone and emotionless, but the fury in his eyes was evident. “You’ll pay for this.”

_Class 1-A’s Homeroom Teacher, Sonosuke Izayoi! Quirk: Camouflage. After staying still for approximately 5 seconds, he can completely blend into his surroundings, making him invisible to the naked eye. This lasts for about 1 minute, and he must wait 5 minute intervals between each camouflage._

“Heh… You think this is the end…” Monokuma muttered out, wheezing out a quiet laugh. “Kurogiri!” He yelled out.

Hajime and the others ran over to where the front entrance was. It seemed to have been closed again, but if they attempted to pry it open again, they could escape and call for extra backup. However, they were stopped from doing so when a shadow began to loom over them. Hajime turned around quickly, encountering the warp villain from earlier. Kurogiri, his name was, was peering down at the group of students, his yellow eyes narrowing in the mist.

Izayoi immediately took off, launching himself off from Monokuma and towards the mist. Monokuma began to stand, trying to take advantage of the situation, but was quickly stopped by a series of small daggers digging themselves into his leg and keeping him to the ground, thrown from the direction of Izayoi. “You stay down.” He grunted, before turning his attention back to Kurogiri.

“Mr. Izayoi, sir.” Shinguuji called out. “I noticed earlier that this villain has some sort of armor floating inside him. That must be linked to his physical body.”

“So, then I’ve just gotta take that part down.” Izayoi finished. “Thanks for the insight, Shinguuji.”

Izayoi hopped up from the ground, moving quickly through the air towards Kurogiri. However, the villain seemed to notice him in time, creating a warp that Izayoi passed right through. The other end of his warp appeared in the ground, causing Izayoi’s upper half to pass through it. Hajime watched in horror as Kurogiri began to shut the warp, trapping his teacher’s upper half to the ground, while his lower half was still in the air, where Kurogiri was.

“You’re quite fast. How commendable.” Kurogiri complimented. “However, this will be the end now. I’ll slowly close my warp gate until it begins to squeeze you to the point where you’ll be split in two.” He explained as the warp grew smaller, tightening around Izayoi’s body and causing him to groan out in pain.

“Mr. Izayoi!” Hajime yelled out at the same time as Kuzuryuu shouted, “You leave him alone!” Kuzuryuu pulled out one of his guns and began firing. Tojo had already made a duplicate, which was running straight into Kurogiri’s mist, her target the metallic piece in the center. Hajime and Shinguuji followed suit, albeit slower as to avoid being warped away. They were banding together to protect their teacher.

“Stay back!” Izayoi called out as the closing warp began to slowly cut his blood flow. “Be careful!”

Hajime didn’t get his chance to help out though, as Monokuma, now up, suddenly appeared at his side, his large hands wide open and lunging at them. Tojo’s duplicate jumped in front of the group, taking the blow and immediately disintegrating.

“I missed my targets, it seems.” Monokuma muttered, his eye centering on Hajime. “Don’t worry, though. I won’t miss again!”

Monokuma’s hand lunged at Hajime centering on it’s target. Kuzuryuu was shouting, Tojo’s hand was reaching out to pull him away, Shinguuji was attempting to grab at the man’s arm, but it was happening too fast. And just like the entrance exam, Hajime found his feet firmly planted to the ground, unable to move. He was scared. He was so, so scared, and the hand that had the power to turn anything to dust was coming closer, now a foot away, and now a few inches away, and now the first finger was touching Hajime, and now-

From behind them, the doors to the USJ burst open, momentarily catching everyone’s attention.

Andoh lunged at Monokuma, throwing the strange serum from a small vial she was holding into Monokuma’s eyes, blinding him. From beside her, Sakakura sprung into action, his fist switching to a silver, metallic color as he drove it straight into Monokuma’s face. Yukizome appeared from behind the two, and then another one, and another, and soon there were around eight different Yukizomes diving straight into Kurogiri, grabbing his armor piece and pinning it to the ground, causing him to release Izayoi and fall to the ground.

Hajime turned back, a small smile tugging the corner of his lips.

“Damn, you assholes are lucky I got here when I did.” Owada was standing in the middle of the doors, all the teachers of UA standing around him; Andoh, Sakakura, Yukizome, Munakata, Kizakura, Great Gozu. Even school faculty who weren’t teachers, like Kimura, Gekkogahara and Bandai were gathered. “But everything’s alright now. Backup’s here.”

“Our top priority is to protect the students.” Munakata’s clear, stern voice rang through the air. “Let’s go.”

-

Chabashira’s tail collided with the backs of multiple villains, spinning around to take a multitude of them down. One of them approached her from her blind spot, nearly punching her, but a small burst of solid air stopped him just in time. Chabashira took him down, turning back.

“Ishimaru, I told you to lay off, you degenerate!” Chabashira scolded. “You can barely even stand!”

Ishimaru wheezed out, his lungs desperate for air as he was being propped up by Yonaga and Tsumiki. “You… I have… To… The villain-” Ishimaru’s words stumbled, attempting to form a coherent sentence, but the lack of oxygen was causing his brain to become fuzzy.

“I told you to leave these guys to me! Get out of here!” Chabashira yelled back at him, not noticing the trio of villains lunging straight for her.

But then a series of bullets pierced through their flesh, sending blood splattering as the villains fell to the ground in pain. Chabashira startled, looking around for the source.

“You fellows really ought to be careful, especially since a man with a gun is here.”

Peering down from on top of the mountain of the landslide zone was Kizakura and Gekkogahara, both looking eager to help out their students.

-

“Get back here kid!” The bird like villain cackled out, soaring through the air before speeding straight down for his target.

“I told you to leave me alone!” Amami growled back, tossing a large wooden plank that had fallen from the burning building beside him and tossing it at the villain, freezing the plank in place which caused the bird man to collide head first into it.

Amami turned to see more villains heading his way. He began running, carrying the assortment of wood and metal planks, platforms, and debris that he had been collecting around. He threw them one by one, each one higher than before, locking them down. Using the temporary staircase, he began to leap from one piece to the next, reaching the roof of one of the burning buildings.

_Rantaro Amami! Quirk: Lock Down. He can lock non-living objects he’s had contact with into a particular point of space, rendering it completely immobile. There’s a certain limit to how large of an object he can lock down._

“Don’t worry kiddo!”

Amami was distracted by the high, femenine voice. He looked around, and felt relief surge through his body upon spotting Andoh and Sakakura charging into battle. “We’ll take it from here!”

-

Ludenberg kept her gaze upon the final villain, a large, bulky man. “He is all yours now.” She said, erasing his quirk and causing him to shrink in size significantly.

Together, Harukawa pinned the man to the ground with the help of Yukizome and Gozu, while the rest of the villains laid on the ground immobile, courtesy of Kimura.

“I didn’t need any help.” Harukawa commented offhandedly.

“Maybe not, but it’s nice to not do things on your own, isn’t it?” Yukizome chirped, a little too cheerfully for a woman who was currently restraining one of the thugs.

It was strange, yet Harukawa felt a tiny smile betray her.

-

In the aftermath of the USJ Attack, over one hundred villains were arrested. Most of them were low level criminals who had been part of petty crimes in the past. As for Monokuma…

While the teachers helped the rest of class 1-A, Kurogiri had managed to slip a warp gate for both him and Monokuma, vanishing right before Hajime’s eyes. He felt frustrated that he got away, and even though Munakata had told him not to worry, as it was an issue for the adults to handle, Hajime couldn’t help but feel worried that this wouldn’t be the last time Monokuma would try something. Especially because he seemed to have some sort of goal….

He had mentioned previously that he wanted to kill the students in order to gain _her_ attention. Hajime had no idea who “her” was, but now that he had been bested by students, Hajime had a feeling that now he could possibly hold some sort of grudge against his class.

Thankfully, none of his classmates had been injured too badly. Ishimaru had been knocked unconscious due to a lack of oxygen, Amami had minor burns, and Pekoyama and Saionji sustained minor scratches and bruising. But they were all alive.

Izayoi had been transported to a nearby hospital following the attack. Apparently, the warp villains murder attempt had broken a few of his bones due to the crushing, but he would be fine.

Mentally, they were all scared… They were terrified, being scattered about and left to fight for themselves. But Hajime knew that they would be able to take this experience and grow stronger.

“Hajimeee!”

The familiar, loud voice snapped Hajime out of his thoughts, and he turned to face Mioda, who was running towards him. Her familiar entourage, consisting of Kuzuryuu, Pekoyama and Amami walked towards him from behind her.

“Hey Mioda, I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” Hajime greeted, and was almost knocked off his feet by Mioda who had charged at him, enveloping him in a hug.

“Hajimeee, you can drop the whole polite act, we’re friends now!” Mioda whined. “I’m Ibuki to you from now on, got it?” She dropped a little wink to get the point across.

Hajime smiled gently. “Right. Ibuki.”

“Ah, that means we’re friends now too, doesn’t it?” Amami said from behind Ibuki. “Well, you can call me Rantaro then. That’s Fuyuhiko and Peko.”

“Tch, don’t introduce us like we’re strangers.” Fuyuhiko grumbled from under his breath.

Hajime couldn’t help but smile wide. Friends. _His friends_. “Hajime. Uh- I’m Hajime, then.” He chuckled.

“Yo, Hinata!” From behind the group, Momota called out to the brown haired boy. “Heard from Tojo that you came up with a plan that worked to get you all outta the water. I knew your quirk was pretty cool, but that’s just plain impressive!” He said cheerfully, offering a thumbs up. Hajime returned the gesture.

“Atua says that Mr. Hall monitor was so cool during the fight!” Yonaga gushed to Chabashira. “I agree too!”

“Yeah, for a male, he’s pretty okay.” Chabashira reluctantly agreed. “He did protect you, at the cost of his lungs.”

“Maki Roll, heard that you held your own for a bit before Ludenberg aided you!” Momota shouted out. “Nice going!”

“Don’t call me that.”

“That reminds me!” Ibuki suddenly perked up, waltzing over to Rantaro and throwing her arms around his neck, hanging off him. “Rantaro, you were all by yourself! So scary!”

“But you held your own. Pretty cool.” Fuyuhiko deadpanned.

“Well, I didn’t really do much fighting. I was just dodging and using hit and run tactics.” Rantaro laughed out nervously, gently extracting himself from Ibuki’s hold.

Hajime smiled gently at his friend’s antics.

“Hajime!”

Hajime turned. The loud, frantic voice belonging to the familiar, white haired boy filled his ears. He witnessed Nagito exiting from one of the teacher’s cars, running straight towards Hajime with tears in his eyes.

“We’ll give you a moment.” Peko quietly said to Hajime, giving him a small pat on the shoulder before driving the other three away. Nagito approached Hajime carefully, like he was afraid of hurting or angering the boy.

“I… I…” Nagito muttered out, tears falling down his cheeks. He was having trouble putting his feelings into words. As social as he was, Hajime knew that deep down, being real and emotionally vulnerable wasn’t one of Nagito’s strong suits. So, Hajime would just do what he could for the boy right now. He opened his arms up for a hug, offering it to the boy.

Nagito instantly entered Hajime’s hold, wrapping his arms tightly around his best friend. “I-I heard that you were in danger, and I was so scared- I didn’t wanna lose you- I didn’t- You’re not hurt are you- Hajime-!” His words were watery and scattered, not making too much sense when put together. He lifted his face to meet Hajime’s eyes. “I-I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry…” He whispered out. Hajime just put a hand on top of his head, stroking his hair gently.

“It’s alright, don’t worry.” Hajime said soothingly. “I already forgave you.”

Nagito continued to bawl into Hajime’s chest as sirens signalled the arrival of the police. Though Hajime had many uncertainties going on through his head right now, with Monokuma, this league of villains, and the safety of him and his classmates, the moments like this comforted him. The moments where his friends were getting the help they needed from paramedics, the moments where he strengthens his bonds with his new friends, and the moments like this where his best friend’s feelings are clear to him tell him all he needs to know.

Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! Apparently, in Japanese culture, it’s respectful to call people by their last names unless you’re very close to them or they ask you to use their first name, to which then it’s alright. In a way it can show how close people are. My knowledge on Japan is still a bit rusty, but that's the reason for everyone's last names being used, if anyone was wondering.  
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! ^^


	12. Recuperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the attack on the USJ, many things are brought to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! I had a flash of inspiration, typed away on my keyboard, did absolutely no planning beforehand, and came out with this :) Enjoy!

“I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to come and have this meeting, even though it is your day off.” Munakata started, taking a seat at the head of the long table situated in the middle of the faculty room. He signalled the rest of the teachers to sit.

“Sonosuke, dear, are you sure you’re okay to be moving around right now?” Andoh fretted from beside him, shaking him gently. “The attack was only yesterday, and you were hurt!”

“I’m fine.” Izayoi deadpanned with a straight face.

“You did a good job, though.” The computerized voice coming from Gekkogahara’s small speaker on her wheelchair sounded. “No one was injured badly, which is a big accomplishment.”

“I wasn’t going to let them hurt anyone.” Izayoi muttered. Though his inflection was void of any emotion, the words were nevertheless powerful.

“Yes, I’d like to commend you as well.” Munakata spoke, his clear voice piercing through the small chatter. “We have serious matters to discuss, however. We must do all we can to research these villains and stop something like this from happening again. Bandai and Kimura,” He turned to the large man down the table, and the meek nurse sitting beside him. “I had you talk with some of the students after the attack. Were you able to gather any useful information?”

“Yup!” He said in an abnormally high voice, a stark contrast from his appearance. “I wasn’t able to talk to all the kids, but I got some interesting stuff from Hinata Hajime!” He laid down a set of papers he had been carrying in his hands, spreading out the notes. “We don’t have a name for this organization of villains yet, but we do know they have a leader by the name of Monokuma.”

Munakata had remembered Izayoi saying something about a man who was black and white. He glanced at the man, but as expected, his neutral expression wasn’t giving away much.

“Um, what had caught my attention was that he said their leader had more than one quirk…” Kimura said quietly, wringing her hands together.

“We can’t hear you, you’ll need to speak louder, hun.” Andoh teased with a smirk on her face, earning a gentle nudge from Yukizome.

“Multiple quirks?” Sakakura mused under his breath. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen somethin’ like that before.”

“Maybe we haven’t, but there is definitely a specific person that comes to mind, hearing that there was more than one quirk involved.” Munakata said, looking at Yukizome, who shared the same look of subtle dread. Of course she knew what he was hinting at. With her and Sakakura by his side since they were in high school, they knew nearly everything he did.

“Wait…” Sakakura’s eyes widened, looking at Munakata with panic. “You don’t mean it could be-?!”

“Let’s focus on one thing at a time.” Munakata cut him off in order to stop any unnecessary panic among the faculty members. “Was that all from the student reports?”

“Nope, there’s a bit more.” Bandai continued, looking down at the papers. “The only other villain we had a clear name for was the warp villain, named Kurogiri. We don’t have much on him, but judging from Hinata’s report, he said that Monokuma and Kurogiri could potentially be very important pieces in this group. ”

“The, um, last thing to note here is that the villains said they were looking for ‘her’.” Kimura said. “W-We aren’t too sure who this person is, but if we’re looking at people that villains may want dead…”

“Do you think they’re after the number one hero, then?” Kizakura asked. “It’d make sense, motive wise. I think.”

“Why target this school, though… Instead of another organization she’s affiliated with…” Munakata mumbled quietly to himself.

The number one hero, known as Magical Hero: Usami, was well known across the entire world as being the reason peace was restored to this world after countless years of war and conflict. At first glance, she may seem childish, with a name like Magical Hero and her pink and white aesthetic, but there was no mistaking that she was number one for a reason.

“I think what the most important thing at the moment is what we can do to prevent this from happening again.” Gozu voiced his opinion, attempting to prevent derailing the topic.

“We sock the next villain we see in the face and send ‘em flying!” Sakakura yelled, punching his fists together.

“Must we resort to so much violence…” Kizakura sighed.

“Well, one thing I can think of is increased supervision.” Yukizome offered. “We shouldn’t let the students go on their own while on school grounds like this.”

“That was my fault. I didn’t think any better.” Izayoi muttered, letting his head fall slightly in shame.

“Oh, don’t say that!” Andoh exclaimed, reaching to touch both of Izayoi’s cheeks with her hands. “There was no way we could’ve seen this coming, don’t fret about it baby!”

“I suddenly feel better.”

“Andoh is right.” Munakata redirected the conversation. “There was no way anyone could have predicted this. But now that we’ve seen it happen, we can take preventative measures to stop it from happening again. No high schooler should have to go through an experience like this.”

This left Munakata with several questions, though. One question especially was lingering at the back of his mind, but he pushed his worries aside. He had other things to attend to in the meeting.

-

Hajime spent his weekend recuperating at Nagito’s house. He wasn’t going to go to his own house since… Well, if his father knew that he had been weak enough to get injured after getting accepted into the hero course, who knew what would’ve happened. He made sure to call his mom and Himari to let them know he was okay, though, once news about the incident began to spread. Nagito had been apologizing profusely nearly the whole time, racked with guilt for filling Hajime’s mind with negative thoughts in a crisis situation, as he said.

When Hajime returned to school the following Monday, he was a little surprised to see Izayoi walk in.

“Mr. Izayoi, sir!” Ishimaru exclaimed from his seat in the front. Hajime was glad to see him back to his normal self, especially after seeing how pale and distraught he was from the attack. “Are you okay?!”

“Yup.” Izayoi drawled out, popping the p. “More importantly, we’ve gotta talk.” He took his usual spot behind the podium in the front of the class, facing everyone. “I first want to commend you all on the attack Friday. Despite being thrown into a sudden life or death situation, you all fought and acted like true heroes. It makes me glad to see our training being put into good use.”

Hajime smiled a bit at the praise. It was nice his teacher was proud of them, especially since he didn’t seem like the type to be impressed by much.

“I want to assure you all, however, that this will _not_ happen again.” Izayoi said, making his point clear. “The school is taking measures to prevent any other student from being attacked, and I personally will see that nothing happens to the twenty of you again.”

With the important things out of the way, Izayoi let out a small sigh. “Now, onto more important things. Look alive, kiddos. The U.A. School Festival is coming fast.”

The classroom exploded in excited chatter and commotion. Even Hajime participated, leaning forward to tap on Fuyuhiko’s shoulder. “You excited for it?” He beamed.”

“I guess.” Fuyuhiko huffed, crossing his arms. Typical of him to act like he wasn’t just as pumped.

The U.A. Sports Festival was an annual event every student looked forward to. In the days before quirks, sports fans would obsess over the Olympics. Now, in this new world of superpowers, all the hype was on the Sports Festival. It was an annual event where students from all grades and courses got to showcase their talent in different forms of competitions.

“Please pardon me, sir,” Tojo began to say. “But are you sure it’s okay to hold such a big event? Especially right after an attack on the school?”

“Don’t ruin it for us!” Momota quietly hissed, but Izayoi waved him off.

“It’s fine. It’s a good point.” Izayoi began to explain. “Me and the rest of the faculty originally asked the same question, but Munakata thought it would be a good idea to hold it anyways, in order to show that our school isn’t shaken and can come back from the attack. Besides, there’ll be a lot more Pro Heroes attending as security, so I’m positive there won’t be any attempts of an attack.” That calmed Hajime’s nerves slightly.

“Even then, it’s just a festival.” Saionji mused, swinging her tiny legs back and forward. “Is it really that important to hold it?”

“It is, actually.” Izayoi said. “The U.A. Sports Festival isn’t just any festival. It’s important and very beneficial, especially to you hero course students.”

“I knew that a lot of people came to watch, but I didn’t know it was so important!” Ibuki exclaimed. “How cool!”

“You see, later on in the semester, you’ll eventually have the opportunity to intern with real Pro Heroes, and do real hero work.” Izayoi lectured. “The sports festival is how you’ll be scouted. It’s true, the festival is a very popular event. That means many people, including Pros, will be watching. They’ll be observing all of you, and if one of you catches their attention, they can scout you out to join their agency for your internships. This event is extremely important for your future as a Pro.”

Okay, that… Was kind of scary to think about. This was basically saying that Hajime had to perform his best at the festival if he wanted to advance in his path to becoming a hero. It was easier said than done, but… He could do this.

-

“Yo, Hajime. I have a question.”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“What’s your deal?”

“H-Huh?!”

That certainly caught him off guard. Hajime just stared incredulously at Fuyuhiko, while Nagito laughed from behind them, overhearing the conversation. They were walking home, and Ibuki had decided to tag along, dragging Peko and Fuyuhiko. She couldn’t bring Amami, though. Apparently, he was staying after school for some extra training. Nagito decided to bring Kamukura, Nanami and Shirogane with as well. They were a pretty big group from an outsider’s point of view. However, they were all pretty dispersed. Nagito and his friends were off in their own world, Peko and Ibuki were whispering excitedly about cats, which caused Hajime to see an extremely excited Peko, way more emotional than he’d ever seen her. So, Hajime was making small talk with Fuyuhiko.

Eventually, Fuyuhiko realised his wording. “I-I mean-! Shit, I didn’t mean that.”

Hajime laughed in response.

“I meant, like, why’re you here?” He rephrased. “Why do you wanna become a hero? What’s your drive?”

“Oh. What makes you ask?”

“Just wonderin’.”

Hajime took a second to ponder the question. “Well… I guess I’ve just always admired heroes. They were always so cool, and they always seemed to protect people in help. It kinda inspired me.” He wasn’t going to note how his main goal was to save people like him, who had hidden horrors in their daily life.

“Though, I guess something that might set me aside from others is that for the longest time, that goal was unattainable for me.” Fuyuhiko made a questioning sound, so Hajime continued. “Uh, you see, my quirk manifested not too long ago. I was like, a really late bloomer.”

“You’re really good at using it though.” Fuyuhiko noted.

“Yeah, well. I guess I just trained excessively after it manifested.” Hajime didn’t really think it was a hard quirk to use, you just had to touch a person. Though, now that he thought about it, there were many steps to take, such as how to reach the person with the quirk and whatnot. Hajime decided to redirect the conversation. “ What about you?”

Fuyuhiko went quiet for a second, his eyes filled with uncertainty.

“Fuck it, I’ll tell you.” He finally grumbled.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t wanna.”

“I said I’m gonna tell you.”

Fuyuhiko took a deep breath, before he began to explain. “Uh, my family, they’re yakuza. Y’know, underground stuff and whatever?” Hajime nodded. “Well, my dad is the leader of a huge yakuza gang, and I was supposed to be the heir to it. But I decided to hell with that, and went off to be a hero.” He went quiet for another beat. “If you saw the things I’ve seen… I wanna stop that from happening. I wanna save people.”

Hajime didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t expect Fuyuhiko to have been a part of the yakuza. He could only imagine the fury his family felt when they learned he wanted to be a hero. A large part of him felt extremely bad and wanted to protect the small boy and assure him everything was alright… Instead, he settled for a small, “How admirable of you.”

That comment earned genuine laughter from Fuyuhiko, a smile replacing the constant frown on his face. _Cute_ , Hajime thought, before stopping the gears in his head. _Cute? Did he think Fuyuhiko was cute?_ Hajime didn’t think he ever really saw a guy in that sort of way. He liked girls, as far as he was concerned. Did he just admit to liking Fuyuhiko? Nah, no way, there was a clear difference from liking someone and just being friends with them. He and Fuyuhiko were friends.

Fuyuhiko continued talking, thankfully stopping Hajime from getting too wrapped up in his mind. “Peko’s always been helping me out, since we were kids. She was always getting me out of trouble and offering her place when things got bad. Though eventually…” He glanced towards Peko, who was surprisingly staring back. Did she hear everything? No way, she was too far to overhear what they were talking about. Fuyuhiko shook his head. “Nah, that story’s not my place to tell. Anyways, Peko probably applied here too just to follow me and protect me, as she always says.” He let out a short chuckle at that. “I’m sure she has her own reasons for wanting to be a hero, though.”

 _So they were close_ , Hajime mused. He studied Fuyuhiko for a second, trying to formulate a response. “Maybe it’s so she can protect you?”

Fuyuhiko laughed harder.

-

“Hajime!”

Hajime was immediately attacked by his sister upon stepping foot into his house, being enveloped in a tight hug.

“Hey, Himari.” He said softly. His mom came running in from the kitchen upon hearing Hajime’s name, doing the same as Himari and hugging Hajime lovingly.

“I was so worried about you.” She said, her voice laced with concern. “You told us you were fine, but I wasn’t sure if you were hurt in any way or needed anything.”

“I meant it, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry.” Hajime said, before looking up, greeted by the sight of his father stepping into the room. Hajime took a deep breath, bracing himself. He didn’t know what was going to happen, his father was always so unpredictable.

“Dad.” He greeted curtly.

“Son.” His dad returned the same tone. “So you were attacked.”

Himari and his mom let go of Hajime, standing beside him. “That’s right.”

“Were you hurt?”

Was his dad… Concerned? Did he actually care that Hajime could have been injured? It seemed unlikely, but… There was always a chance…

Hajime had to test the waters. “A little bit.”

His eye twitched, and Hajime knew he had expected too much.

“So you’re telling me,” Hajime’s father started, and he could already see his mother putting her hands up in an attempt to calm him down. “After all that training, and all the money we spent to get you into that school, you got hurt fighting villains that you _should have had no trouble with?! _”__

__“Not now, please-” His mother begged._ _

__“Shut it!”_ _

__Hajime’s blood began to boil as he felt a surge of anger coursing through him. “I’d like to see you try to do what I did!” Hajime finally yelled back, standing up to his poor excuse for a dad. “I know that if you were in my shoes, you’d save your own ass instead of trying to help everyone else! So I’d like to see you try!” He could feel tears of anger (Frustration? Sadness? He wasn’t too sure anymore) prickle at his eyes, but he kept going. “Your sorry ass would have been out the door the first chance you got! I’d like to see you try to be a hero! Because I haven’t seen an ounce of heroism from you _since I’ve been brought into this world_!”_ _

__

__Hajime’s father took a step forward with a clenched fist._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the next few chapters, I'll be attempting to cover some other characters and their backstories (or just fleshing them out in general). We'll see how that goes lol
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos are appreciated! Have a lovely day :)


	13. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath reveals the truth about Hajime's home life to two of his classmates, and Fuyuhiko recieves an unexpected guest staying over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hii! Sorry, this chapter took a while to come out, and I really have no excuse there, haha.
> 
> Anyways, please enjoy!

Hajime felt his legs beginning to give out on him. But he had to keep going.

Limping down the street was not how he expected to end the day, but he should’ve expected something like this to happen after standing up to his father like that. That was an idiotic move.

His father had beat him, yelling at him to get out of his house and to not come back until he learned how to respect his elders. Hajime had a feeling that he’d have to end up sleeping at the nearby park again. His mom, the angel that she is, had gone against his dad, but that just ended up with her getting hurt too. It sucked that Hajime had not only gotten himself hurt, but his mother too. Himari was quick enough to grab the emergency bag that she had started putting together when stuff like this first started happening. It was a simple small bag with bandages, food and water. Hajime quietly smiled at his sister’s efforts.

However, the bag felt so heavy on his back, as he was barely even able to keep himself up. He was almost at the park, but his vision was starting to darken, and he couldn’t help but finally fall over, hitting the ground roughly. He never had this problem before, he was always able to make it to his spot before passing out. What made tonight so different? Was the beating that bad? Or maybe he was just getting weaker?

A series of panicked voices and footsteps running to him made his blood run cold, the thought of being spotted out like this by someone he knew. But by then, his eyes were already closing, and the world faded around him.

-

There were a lot of things that Tsumiki hadn’t expected today. First off, she certainly hadn’t expected Saionji to not yell at her today. Maybe that was just because she did her best to stay out of her path, but still! Then, Izayoi returned to class, looking healthy, and announced that the sports festival was still being held. Finally, Yonaga had walked up to her after class and offered to walk to the station with her, since they both had to stay after school; Tsumiki to talk with Ms. Kimura about health tips, and Yonaga to look into the art club they had.

But the biggest shock to Tsumiki today was walking down a path with Yonaga, only to notice a heavily injured Hinata stumble around, a small trail of blood behind him, before falling to the ground and passing out.

Tsumiki’s nursing instincts immediately kicked in, and she dropped everything she was holding to run over to the bleeding boy, Yonaga following behind her. The girl was nearly always seen with a smile on her face, so to see her so worried right now just confirmed for Tsumiki that she wasn’t over reacting.

“H-Hinata?!” Tsumiki exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of the boy. She didn’t get a response. “T-This isn’t good! We need t-to get him off the street!” Tsumiki began panicking, gently lifting Hinata’s upper half off the ground. Thankfully, Yonaga was also with her, and the other lifted Hinata by the legs. Together, they moved him over to the park that was just next to them, placing him on one of the benches.

“We have to take him to the hospital. He isn’t looking well.” Yonaga said, grabbing the bag that Hinata had on him.

“Y-Y-Yes!” Tsumiki replied, when she was suddenly handed a roll of gauze bandaging from Yonaga, who had the backpack open.

“This was in the bag. Will it help?” Yonaga asked hurriedly.

“Yes! This is perfect!” Tsumiki affirmed, turning back to her injured classmate. As she began to carefully wrap the large gash on his head with the gauze, she noticed Hinata’s eyes slowly flutter open, half lidded with pain.

“Tsu… mik… i?” He groaned out, before hissing in pain.

“P-Please don’t talk right now, Hinata! I-It’s only going to cause you more p-pain!”

From behind her, Tsumiki can hear Yonaga calling the hospital in a panicked tone. A small, weak tug on Tsumiki’s shirt turns her attention back to Hinata, who looked up at her with clouded eyes that held a pleading expression.

“D-Don’t… Tell…” He slowly breathes out.

“W-What?” Tsumiki questions. “I- We n-need to get you to the hospital! H-How do we not tell anyone-?!”

“Please.”

Tsumiki’s not sure why, but suddenly Hinata’s request clicks for her. _Don’t tell the class._ But why? Why would he want to hide his injuries from anyone? They were clearly really serious, and if his parents weren’t here to help him, Tsumiki had a sinking feeling that there was some type of involvement at home.

It’s probably because he doesn’t want to be seen as a burden. Tsumiki could relate to that herself, doing everything she can to get out of people’s way. Usually, everyone was happier if she just stayed still and quiet. Tsumiki didn’t want to keep this a secret, but with how much she understood Hinata’s feelings…

“I-I won’t.”

-

After getting a few stitches and bandaging, Hajime was being discharged from the hospital the next day. He unfortunately had to skip class that day, but Tsumiki had been kind enough to excuse him to Izayoi. If he remembered correctly (He had been delirious from pain, so it was hard to remember exactly what happened that day), she also promised to keep it a secret. Bless the girl.

Speaking of Tsumiki, she was currently walking to Hajime’s house with him. She had demanded that he let her go with her with an unusual forceful demeanor.

“Hey, Tsumiki? How come you knew how to bandage me up?” Hajime asked. “Are your parents doctors or something?”

“O-Oh! Um…” Her cheeks turned red, clearly embarrassed by the question. “W-Well, I was, um… I’ve always been b-bullied by everyone, so... I had to learn how t-to care for myself…” She stumbled out, on the verge of tears (Then again, it seemed she was always nearly crying).

“Oh.” Hajime lamely said, the only thing he was able to muster up. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“O-Oh, d-don’t worry!” She exclaimed. “U-Um, the bullying isn’t t-that bad anymore! I-It’s only words now!”

Hajime frowns at that. “Even if it’s words, no one deserves to be bullied.” He stated, before arriving at their front porch.

He wasn’t exactly sure why Tsumiki had demanded she come with him, though if he had to guess, it’s probably because she was worried and had a suspicion that Hajime’s injuries came from someone at home. She was totally right about that, but he wasn’t really looking forward to that being confirmed for her.

Slowly and carefully, he opened the door to his house, letting himself in and keeping the door open for Tsumiki, who meekly made her way inside. For good measure, he made sure to shout out, “I’m back! And I brought a friend!” He didn’t miss the way Tsumiki’s face lit up from being called his friend. Seriously, what has that girl been through?

His mom immediately ran over to him the second she heard his voice, closing in for a hug.

“Oh, I was so worried about you, Hajime.” She gently murmured, stroking his hair gently, before her eyes landing on the trembling girl behind him. “Oh dear, I didn’t see you there. I apologize.” She said sheepishly, before extending a hand to Tsumiki. “My name is Hanae Hinata, I’m Hajime’s mother.”

Tsumiki cautiously took his mother’s hand and shook it gently. “U-Um, I-I’m Tsumiki Mikan. Nice t-to meet you.” She stuttered out.

“Where’s Himari?” Hajime asked.

His mom’s eyes clouded with turmoil for a brief second, before returning to the previous inviting look. “Oh, she’s staying with a friend. Yesterday had taken quite a toll on her.”

She was careful not to say anything that would raise suspicion for Tsumiki. However, she didn’t know that Tsumiki already knew something was happening, so if anything it confirmed it more for the rather observant girl.

“Oi! So your back, then.”

The all too familiar boom of the drunken man’s voice boomed through the house. Hajime could only hope that the man was in enough of a stable mental state to not make a scene in front of his classmate. The large man made his way down the stairs, narrowing his eyes on Hajime. “Did you use your time to think about your actions?” He spat out.

“Yes sir.” Hajime replied, eyes trained to the ground.

His dad seemed to finally notice Tsumiki. “Ha! You brought a girl home!” He laughed out, and began walking to Tsumiki. Hajime saw her physically take a step back, so he subtly put himself in front of her, acting as a sort of shield. “What is she, your girlfriend? She don’t got a voice to greet me?”

Hajime’s mother gave the man a light smack on his arm. “Manners, please.” She reminded him.

He turned to her with blazing eyes. “Don’t hit me, woman.” He gritted out, and Hanae immediately shriveled back. The large villain of a man turned back to Hajime. “Well? You gonna tell me about your girl?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, first of all.” Hajime corrected. His dad’s eyes twitched, and Hajime’s courage immediately crumbled, but he kept going. “She’s my classmate, and I’d like if we could all get along right now.”

Hajime honestly wasn’t expecting another beatdown so soon, right after getting treated, and especially in front of another person. He expected his father to have more sense than that. But his fist clenched, and his breathing became heavy, and Hajime knew exactly what was coming.

He had no idea how, but it was like Tsumiki knew what was coming too. She lightly tapped Hajime’s shoulder, but before he could reply, or even so much as turn to her, she leaned over to his ear.

“Hold your breath.” She whispered.

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he did as she asked and stopped breathing. Tsumiki seemed to wait a moment, inspecting his dad’s movements. But then the second he took a step, she sprung into action. For such a frail and shy girl, her movements were fairly confident in that moment.

“What is it, girl?” His dad sneered at her, but Tsumiki didn’t reply. Instead, she gently rolled her sleeve up, before a strange, pink colored fragrance released from her arm, circling around the older man.

Within a few seconds, his dad had fallen to the ground, apparently unconscious.

Hajime finally allowed himself to breathe, and Tsumiki immediately began to cry then, rolling her sleeve back up and bowing down in front of Hajime and his mom.

“I-I’m so sorry!” She squealed. “H-He looked angry s-so I thought it w-would help! I-I didn’t hurt him, I swear!”

She continued crying, but Hajime felt a smile creep onto his face when Hanae gently placed her hand on Tsumiki’s shoulder. “Thank you.” She offered, smiling gently down at the trembling girl.

_Mikan Tsumiki! Quirk: Somnambulist. She can put people to sleep with a fragrance coming off of her body. It tends to work better on guys than girls._

-

“U-Um, Hajime?”

Hajime hummed, acknowledging the girl beside him, walking away from his house.

“D-Do you have a place t-to stay?”

Hajime froze. He couldn’t tell her that he usually sleeps at the park. He was already asking her too much to keep this a secret, but he assumed that there was only so much he could confide in his classmate before she would eventually report it to authorities, in fear of the safety of Hajime. He couldn’t bring any attention to him. The media would cover it in less than a second; A hero course student being beaten by his father. How pathetic, right?

“Um…” He couldn’t find any words to say.

“I-I would offer my house, b-but we’re already- Well, um-” She trailed off, trying to explain her situation. Hajime shook his head. She had already done so much for him. He couldn’t ask Tsumiki for more by staying at her house.

“Ah, don’t worry!” He hurriedly exclaimed, before she started crying again. “I’m sure one of my friends would be okay with me sleeping over!”

“O-Oh, that’s good to hear!” Tsumiki sighed happily. “W-Who is it?”

And there goes Hajime’s plan. He honestly was going to make that excuse and go back to his bench at the park, but now that Tsumiki’s asking, he can’t lie and throw a random name out. If she asked the person, and they confirmed that Hajime didn’t sleep over, he would be in serious trouble.

Hajime pulled his phone up, scrolling through the contacts, before eventually wincing as he taps on one of the ones he had recently saved.

Hajime hoped he wouldn’t be too much of a burden for this person.

-

“Yo.”

“Hey.”

Despite the rather professionally done makeup that Yonaga had put on him before he left, Fuyuhiko still eyed him suspiciously. “What’s goin’ on?” He pressed, leaning against the front door frame of his house. Hajime honestly should’ve known Fuyuhiko would’ve been able to tell that a last minute request to sleepover meant something happened.

“N-Nothing! Promise.” He stumbled a little too loudly, hoping Fuyuhiko would overlook it. “I just, y’know, wanted to see you.” He flashed a smile at Fuyuhiko.

He could’ve sworn Fuyuhiko’s cheeks grew a little pink, but that didn’t stop the smaller boy from reaching out towards his face. Hajime flinched back, knowing that if he touched the big bruise there covered in foundation, it would make Hajime hiss in pain. But then Fuyuhiko’s hand stilled, and Hajime realised his mistake.

“You were hurt.” Fuyuhiko said, stating it as a fact. “Who?”

Hajime looked away. He couldn’t talk about it. He _wouldn’t._ Not to Fuyuhiko. Hajime didn’t know why himself, but it was almost like something in him was compelled to look good to Fuyuhiko, and showing his vulnerability was the complete opposite of that.

A brief, fiery look flashed through Fuyuhiko’s eyes, but they were quickly wiped away, and Fuyuhiko finally looked away from Hajime, stepping aside and gesturing Hajime to come inside. Fuyuhiko’s house was fairly barren, only a few pieces of furniture placed about. There weren’t any decorations, the walls were simply white and empty. Hajime heard the sound of footsteps emitting from the hallway to the left of him, and Peko popped into view.

“Ah, Hinata. Welcome.” Peko greeted. She was one of his few friends who continued to call everyone by their last names, despite being told otherwise. The only exception to this rule was Ibuki, for some strange reason. “Fuyuhiko already informed me about your stay, we set up the guest room for you.”

“Thank you.” Hajime replied. “Really, you guys are doing too much. Just the couch would’ve been fine.”

“Don’t be stupid, I wouldn’t make you sleep there.” Fuyuhiko barked, crossing his arms and glaring up at Hajime. Peko nodded from her spot in agreement, before disappearing into the house.

“So…” Hajime said after Fuyuhiko led him to the room he would be staying in. “You and Peko live together?”

Fuyuhiko grunted in affirmation. “I already told you about my family, it was too dangerous to stay with ‘em. We had enough money, so we’re renting this place out. Cheapest we could find.” He explained.

“And you’re telling me you guys are _just_ friends, right?” Hajime laughed, despite feeling a strange pang in his chest at his own joke.

Fuyuhiko smacked him in the back of the head. “Say that again and I’ll throw you outside.”

Hajime just laughed, shaking his head. “Night, Fuyuhiko. And…” He quickly got out, catching the attention of the smaller boy who was just about to walk out. “Um… Thank you. Really, for this.” He offered warmly.

Fuyuhiko made a strangled noise, darting his eyes away from Hajime. “Yeah, whatever. Get to sleep.”


	14. The U.A Sports Festival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sports Festival has officially begun!

The next two weeks passed by. Hajime, now equipped with the knowledge that he was allowed to spend time at Fuyuhiko’s whenever he wanted, ended up spending a lot more time with the shorter boy than at his own house. Tsumiki and Yonaga, while not necessarily joining Hajime’s friend group, kept checking up on Hajime himself every now and then. He appreciated the thought. With the Sports Festival coming up, Hajime began to train his quirk, as well as his combat abilities for it. Every now and then, Fuyuhiko and Peko would join, or on some days it would be Nagito. There were a couple times where he met up with Ibuki and Rantaro too. But regardless of the day, he was constantly training.

And before he knew it, it was time for the Sports Festival.

-

Hajime couldn’t be more nervous. After all, even though the Sports Festival was something that seemed fun and light-hearted, Mr. Izayoi made it clear how important it was that they all did well. Currently, he and his classmates were in the waiting room which contained two large tables with enough chairs for everyone to sit, waiting for their class to be called out to the main field by Ms. Andoh, who’s acting as the commentator for the event.

“Man, this is so exciting!” Fuyuhiko cheered from the seat in front of Hajime. He hasn’t really seen the blond so excited for anything before. It made Hajime’s heart beat subtly faster.

“M-More like nerve-wracking…” Tsumiki sighed.

Saionji scoffed at her, crossing her arms. “Jeez, do you really have to put everything down? You really _are_ a nasty, trashy pig!”

Tsumiki squealed out apologies at her, and after scolding Saionji, who wasn’t listening at all, Ishimaru stood up to grab the attention of the whole class. “Even though Saionji has a very unorthodox way of speaking,” Ishimaru said, earning a small kick from the girl in question. “She may have a point. We should all be looking at this as an opportunity and a good experience to learn.”

“Ishimaru makes a good point.” Kirumi now stands up, taking over the speech. “Let us remember to use this as a chance to show off what we can do, as well as a chance to have a good time with our classmates and friends after everything we’ve been through.” She finished.

Chabashira proceeded to punch her fist in the air. “Aww yeah! Now I’m even more excited! Class 1-A!” She yelled out in enthusiasm.

“Yeah, right.” Owada growled out, crossing his arms and getting off of his seat. “We ain’t here to make friends or no bullshit. We’re here to be the best heroes we can be. And that means that everyone here is a target, and an obstacle to be beat. Now come on, you idiots, we’re gonna be called up shortly.” He said, taking long strides to the door, opening it before turning back and directing an accusatory finger at Hajime’s attention. Hajime immediately stiffens. “You. I’ll take you down myself.” His glare bore into Hajime’s soul, before he let his gaze go in favor of turning his back and walking out the door.”

The rest of the class began to follow the taller boy. “Ugh, degenerates like him are why the world is so messed up.” Chabashira spat out, before turning to Hajime with considerably more empathy. “Um… Are you okay, Hinata?”

Hajime sighed. He really wasn’t, he was extremely nervous… But, maybe… “Yeah, I’ll be fine. If anything, his declaration gives me even more determination to win.” Hajime replied, and Chabashira seemed satisfied, if not even a little proud.

He’ll take down Owada, and then win the whole thing. He can do this.

-

“Hellooo Japan!”

Ms. Andoh’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers, her cheery and energetic voice not doing much to soothe Hajime’s nerves. There’s a monitor in the hallway his class is waiting in that is displaying the petite woman. At the end of the hallway is the opening to the field. Once she calls out Class 1-A, they’ll finally walk out.

“To some of you, I may be known to you as the Sweet Hero: Confectionista!” Andoh cheerily said. “And today I have with me, my co-commentator, the Stealth Hero: Camouflage!” She slings an arm over their homeroom teacher. Izayoi honestly looks like he wants to be anywhere but where he currently is.

“His hero name is Camouflage? Can you really get any lamer?” Saionji smirks.

“I do have to admit, it is quite an unfortunate name.” Ludenberg solemnly agrees.

Ishimaru shushes them, before continuing to wait for their cue. Seems like Andoh has moved on from the friendly banter, and is now ready to start the tournament.

“Now, let’s meet our wonderful students who’ll be the entertainment for today, shall we?” Andoh asks the audience, and is met with loud cheers. “It’s time for the first year students!”

 _Here we go,_ Hajime thinks.

“This class has been in the spotlight of the country as the first class to be attacked and have experience with real villains. It’s the class you’re probably all super excited to see, the one, the only, hero course Class 1-A!” Andoh cheers, and Hajime forces his feet to move until he feels the green grass under his feet, and suddenly the loud cheering deafens him slightly. The bright sunlight hits his skin as he looks around, observing the hundreds of people on the bleachers looking down upon him and his class.

Rantaro nudges him. “This is a lot to take in, don’t you think?” He chuckles out.

“Well, duh! When we’re heroes, we’re gonna be in the spotlight all the time!” Ibuki chimes in. “I can’t wait! This is like a preview!”

Once they reach the middle of the field, Andoh’s voice picks up again, startling Hajime slightly, to Fuyuhiko’s amusement.

“Next! Even though they haven’t had nearly as much screen time, this next bunch is just as promising and brimming with potential! Please welcome the hero course, Class 1-B!”

Hajime turns his head to the group of students walking their direction, and the first face he’s able to recognize right off the bat is Nagito. He looks a little embarrassed by all the attention. Then, Hajime recognizes from behind him Nanami, Kamukura, and Shirogane, his friends that he eats lunch with. There’s also a lot of new and interesting faces in Nagito’s class: A short boy with purple hair, an energetic blonde with purple eyes, a very large and bulky girl, and even someone who’s invisible, if the floating gym clothes were anything to go by.

“Targets.” Owada gruffs out to himself in amusement.

“Friends!” Yonaga pipes up, subtly correcting him. Owada simply rolls his eyes.

Andoh goes on, continuing to introduce every other first year class: There’s the support courses, general studies, and finally the business courses.

“And now, it’s time to find out what our first years will be doing for their preliminary rounds!” Andoh says into the mic. “I’d like everyone to turn their attention to UA’s very own, and Class 1-B’s teacher, Dupli-Lady!”

Ms. Chisa, homeroom teacher to Nagito’s class, walks onto the field, reaching the stage that had been prepared for her, and turns to face the large crowd of students. And what she says next encourages Hajime into thinking that he may just have a chance at winning after all.

“The first round will consist of… An obstacle course! The first forty-two students to pass will advance!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a shorter chapter, I've had a huge writer's block. But no worries, the next chapter will definitely be a longer and more interesting one!


End file.
